{
"data": {
"id": 115692,
"accession_number": "1936.407",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Strawberries, c. 1936. Dorothy Rutka (American, 1907\u20131985). Color aquatint; platemark: 25.3 x 22.5 cm (9 15/16 x 8 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland, 1936.407",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Strawberries",
"creation_date": "c. 1936",
"creation_date_earliest": 1926,
"creation_date_latest": 1936,
"artists_tags": [
"Cleveland Institute of Art (alumni)",
"female",
"May Show"
],
"culture": [
"America, Ohio, Cleveland"
],
"technique": "color aquatint",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "wove paper",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Prints",
"collection": "PR - Aquatint",
"type": "Print",
"measurements": "Platemark: 25.3 x 22.5 cm (9 15/16 x 8 7/8 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"platemark": {
"height": 0.253,
"height_inch": 9,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.9375,
"width": 0.225,
"width_inch": 8,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.875
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": "250",
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Titled in pencil on bottom left corner beneath design: Strawberries",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
},
{
"inscription": "Signed in pencil on bottom right corner beneath design: D Rutka",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 356682,
"title": "Recent Accessions of Prints and Drawings",
"description": "Recent Accessions of Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 6-31, 1937).",
"opening_date": "1937-10-06T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 309579,
"title": "The Cleveland Institute of Art: 100 Years",
"description": "The Cleveland Institute of Art: 100 Years. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 22, 1982-January 30, 1983).",
"opening_date": "1982-12-22T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Studio of the artist, distributed to the Print Club of Cleveland through the Print-A-Month series",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1936",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Print Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1936",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1936-",
"sortorder": 4
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Rutka\u2019s early prints are mostly black and white, making this work a colorful outlier.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Dorothy Rutka was a member of the Cleveland Print Makers Club, a group that experimented with various printing techniques. In this aquatint, the soft form of the banister visible through the warm glow of the window contrasts with the rigid, cool lines of the counter. The image\u2019s lack of depth may have been inspired by Post-Impressionism and, indirectly, Japanese prints. The strawberries, though recognizable, are abstract, foreshadowing Rutka\u2019s carefully rendered yet creatively altered depictions of nature later in life.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80009423"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1936.407",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 115692,
"creators": [
{
"id": 15415,
"description": "Dorothy Rutka (American, 1907\u20131985)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Although active as an artist in Cleveland through the 1980s, Dorothy Rutka is best known for her sobering Depression-era intaglio prints depicting social ills. Born and raised in Grand Rivers, Michigan, Rutka moved to Ohio to attend the Cleveland School of Art. She graduated in 1929 with a specialization in portraiture and did additional course work in the Huntington Polytechnic Institute. She married Jack Kennon, political editor for the Cleveland News. In 1931 she toured Europe for seven months. In the early 1930s she worked as a writer and illustrator for the Bystander and in 1936 was part of the Cleveland graphic arts project of the Works Progress Administration. She joined the Cleveland Artist\u2019s Union and the American Artists\u2019 Congress. In Cleveland she showed at the Ross Widen Gallery, the 1030 Gallery, and the Art Colony (1940s\u201350s). She also exhibited frequently in the May Shows at the Cleveland Museum of Art (1929\u201366) and in exhibitions in New York, Philadelphia, Dayton, Brooklyn, and Washington, D.C. In 1960 she married Philip Porter, who was named executive editor of the Plain Dealer in 1963. They were killed by an unknown intruder in their home in Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Transformations in Cleveland Art. (CMA, 1996), p. 235
Biographical information exists in the Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1907",
"death_year": "1985",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1936-06-05T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1926,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1936",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-08-03 14:10:25.536000"
}
}