ABSTRACT
Charles Green Shaw came of age during the fast-paced, consumer-driven swing age of the Roaring Twenties. Born in 1892 to a wealthy New York family, he lived the capricious life expected of a New York socialite, despite losing both his parents at a young age. Beneficiary to an inheritance based in part upon the Woolworth fortune, Shaw summered in Newport and spent Christmas at Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt's balls, consorting with the well-bred, well-groomed, and well-moneyed folk of New York's elite. Shaw, Morris, and Gallatin, along with Morris's new wife Suzy Frelinghuysen, joined the American Abstract Artists group. Though the organization was originally formed to increase exhibition opportunities for American abstractionists, it would soon prove to be a significant force in bringing issues associated with abstract art directly to the American public. Shaw provided his most outspoken defense of abstract art in the 1938 American Abstract Artists' yearbook.
