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"tombstone": "Russian Dancer, 1925. Alexander Blazys (American, born Russian Empire [now Lithuania], 1894\u20131963). Bronze; overall: 26.1 x 29.2 x 12.8 cm (10 1/4 x 11 1/2 x 5 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection, 1926.1547",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Russian Dancer",
"creation_date": "1925",
"creation_date_earliest": 1925,
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"Cleveland Institute of Art (faculty)"
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"department": "American Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "American - Sculpture",
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"measurements": "Overall: 26.1 x 29.2 x 12.8 cm (10 1/4 x 11 1/2 x 5 1/16 in.)",
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"title": "Cleveland Art Comes of Age: 1919-1940",
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"opening_date": "1989-06-28T04:00:00"
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"title": "The Human Figure in American Sculpture: A Question of Modernity",
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"opening_date": "1995-02-23T05:00:00"
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{
"id": 311873,
"title": "Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946",
"description": "Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 19-July 21, 1996).",
"opening_date": "1996-05-19T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 177916,
"title": "Burchfield to Schreckengost: Cleveland Art of the Jazz Age",
"description": "Burchfield to Schreckengost: Cleveland Art of the Jazz Age. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 28-July 18, 2004).",
"opening_date": "2004-03-28T00:00:00"
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"former_accession_numbers": [
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"description": "A Lithuanian immigrant, Blazys introduced modernist sculpture to Cleveland upon his arrival in 1925. These figures merge rhythmic movement inspired by music with faceted, geometric planes derived from Cubism.",
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"citations": [
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"citation": "Alexander Blazys Entry Card to 1926 May Show. Cleveland Museum of Art May Show Records, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
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"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMS01065/"
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{
"citation": "Clark, Edna Maria. Ohio Art and Artists. Richmond, VA: Garrett and Massie, 1975.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 414",
"url": null
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{
"citation": "Hoffman, Jay, Dee Driscole, and Mary Clare Zahler. A Study in Regional Taste: The May Show, 1919-1975. [Cleveland]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1977.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 47, no. 48; Mentioned: P. 78, no. 48",
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"citation": "Robinson, William H., et. al. Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p.98, fig.104; Mentioned: p. 245",
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},
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"citation": "Bassett, Mark T., R. Guy Cowan, and Victoria Naumann. Cowan Pottery and the Cleveland School. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 1997.",
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"url": null
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{
"citation": "Steinberg, David and William H. Robinson. Cleveland Museum of Art--Exhibitions--Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. The Cleveland Museum of Art: Ohio University Press, 2013.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 98, fig. 104; Mentioned: p. 245",
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"description": "Alexander Blazys (American, born Russian Empire [now Lithuania], 1894\u20131963)",
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"biography": "Cleveland\u2019 s leading modernist sculptor of the 1920s, Alexander Blazys was born in Poniewiesz, Lithuania. After graduating from military school, he studied sculpture for seven years at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. He visited Paris frequently during this period and in 1920 decided not to return to the Soviet Union because of the political restrictions placed on modernist art. Working in Paris, he received critical acclaim for sculptures exhibited in the Salon des Ind\u00e9pendants. In 1923 he immigrated to Detroit, where exhibited and received his first American commissions. The following year he moved to New York City but, upon the invitation of a friend, settled in Cleveland in 1925. Blazys\u2019 gracefully stylized sculptures of East European folk dancers and musicians in the 1926 May Show at the Cleveland Museum of Art established his reputation as \u201cthe sculptor of rhythms.\u201d He was immediately embraced by the Cleveland art community, receiving numerous commissions for portrait busts, from which he earned his primary income. He was head of the sculpture department at the Cleveland School of Art, 1926\u201338. In 1927 his large bronze figural work City Fettering Nature was installed on the grounds of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Around this time Blazys joined the staff of the Cowan Pottery Studio as a designer and encouraged the studio to experiment with ceramic sculpture. Cleveland\u2019s Eastman Bolton Gallery sponsored his first solo exhibition (1929), and his works subsequently appeared in group shows in Cleveland, Chicago, and Philadelphia though he remained active in the local art scene during the 1930s, his popularity waned, and in the early 1940s, after com plet ing a Works Progress Administration commission to create stone relief carvings for the Woodhill Homes housing project, he moved to New Jersey and worked for a series of ceramic firms creating molds for mass-produced figurines. Blazys returned to Cleveland in 1952. Selected References Fort, Ilene Susan.
\"Transformations in Cleveland Art\" (CMA, 1996), p. 223",
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