id: 109045 accession number: 1927.211 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1927.211 updated: 2025-01-13 13:01:19.592000 The City Fettering Nature, 1927. Alexander Blazys (American, 1894–1963). Bronze; without base: 235.6 x 177.8 x 104.2 cm (92 3/4 x 70 x 41 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. B. P. Bole, Leonard C. Hanna Jr., John L. Severance and F. F. Prentiss 1927.211 title: The City Fettering Nature title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1927 creation date earliest: 1927 creation date latest: 1927 current location: SL South Lawn creditline: Gift of Mrs. B. P. Bole, Leonard C. Hanna Jr., John L. Severance and F. F. Prentiss copyright: --- culture: America, Ohio, Cleveland technique: bronze department: American Painting and Sculpture collection: American - Sculpture type: Sculpture find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Alexander Blazys (American, 1894–1963) - sculptor Cleveland’ 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 Indépendants. 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’ 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 “the sculptor of rhythms.” 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, 1926–38. 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’s 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 --- measurements: without base: 235.6 x 177.8 x 104.2 cm (92 3/4 x 70 x 41 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: The May Show: 9th Annual Exhibition of Works by Cleveland Artists and Craftsmen opening date: 1927-04-27T04:00:00 The May Show: 9th Annual Exhibition of Works by Cleveland Artists and Craftsmen. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 27-June 5, 1927). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE the cast was sent to the foundry of Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, where it was cast in bronze by Giovanni Polizzoti, a teacher at the College, with the aid of two students; the bronze was returned and installed on the lawn north of the Museum, 12/14/1927. date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Alexander Blazys Entry Card to 1927 May Show. Cleveland Museum of Art May Show Records, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. page number: url: https://archive.org/details/CMAMS01260/ --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1927.211/1927.211_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1927.211/1927.211_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1927.211/1927.211_full.tif