id:			112296
accession number:	1930.71.1
share license status:	Copyrighted
url:			https://clevelandart.org/art/1930.71.1
updated:		2023-08-23 19:32:22.451000

Bookend, c. 1925–29. Austria, Vienna. Enamel on copper; base: 8.3 x 7.7 cm (3 1/4 x 3 1/16 in.); body: 10.7 x 8.9 cm (4 3/16 x 3 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Educational Purchase Fund 1930.71.1

title:				Bookend
title in original language:	
series:				
series in original language:	
creation date:			c. 1925–29
creation date earliest:		1925
creation date latest:		1929
current location:		
creditline:			Educational Purchase Fund
copyright:			

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culture:	Austria, Vienna
technique:	enamel on copper
department:	Decorative Art and Design
collection:	Decorative Arts
type:		Enamel
find spot:	
catalogue raisonne: 

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CREATORS

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measurements: Base: 8.3 x 7.7 cm (3 1/4 x 3 1/16 in.); Body: 10.7 x 8.9 cm (4 3/16 x 3 1/2 in.)
state of the work:	
edition of the work: 	

support materials:


inscriptions:

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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

	title:		Stories From Storage
	opening date:   2021-02-07T05:00:00
	<i>Stories From Storage</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).

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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS

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PROVENANCE

	(Exhibition of Austrian Arts and Crafts, Vienna, Austria, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
	date: 1930
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


	The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
	date: 1930-
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


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fun fact:
The colorful enameled surface and stylized form of this feline bookend, one of a pair, express the child-like simplicity of its design.

digital description:
Artisans working in Austria, especially in Vienna, during the years before the First World War embraced the concept that within every child is an artist and in every artist there is a child. This idea conveyed a sense of liberation from the strictures of formality and tradition. In the 1920s the Vienna Workshop (Wiener Werkstätte) promoted the work of prominent toy designers as serious expressions of art to be studied alongside other artistic genres such as painting and sculpture admired by adults. The colorful compositions and sense of whimsy in these designs for children reflected Viennese decorative art in general between the wars.

wall description:
In the early 1900s, bending and cutting sheet metal to produce dynamic shapes was one of the most common techniques used to teach natural form in design schools in Vienna. From this method evolved the commercial production of small polished or enameled figures of popular animals from the circus or farm—including giraffes, foxes, and dogs—exaggerated in their modernist forms.
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RELATED WORKS

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CITATIONS

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