{ "data": { "id": 117071, "accession_number": "1937.64", "share_license_status": "Copyrighted", "tombstone": "Lightning Arresters, c. 1937. Dorothy Rutka (American, 1907\u20131985). Aquatint; platemark: 20.3 x 17.6 cm (8 x 6 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland, 1937.64", "current_location": null, "title": "Lightning Arresters", "creation_date": "c. 1937", "creation_date_earliest": 1926, "creation_date_latest": 1937, "artists_tags": [ "Cleveland Institute of Art (alumni)", "female", "May Show" ], "culture": [ "America, Ohio, Cleveland" ], "technique": "aquatint", "support_materials": [ { "description": "wove paper", "watermarks": [] } ], "department": "Prints", "collection": "PR - Aquatint", "type": "Print", "measurements": "Platemark: 20.3 x 17.6 cm (8 x 6 15/16 in.)", "dimensions": { "platemark": { "height": 0.203, "height_inch": 8, "height_inch_fraction": 0.0, "width": 0.176, "width_inch": 6, "width_inch_fraction": 0.9375 } }, "state_of_the_work": null, "edition_of_the_work": "20", "copyright": null, "inscriptions": [ { "inscription": "Titled in pencil on bottom left corner beneath plate: Lightning arresters", "inscription_translation": null, "inscription_remark": null, "sortorder": null }, { "inscription": "Signed in pencil on bottom right beneath plate: D Rutka", "inscription_translation": null, "inscription_remark": null, "sortorder": null } ], "exhibitions": { "current": [ { "id": 382028, "title": "The May Show: 19th Annual Exhibition of Works by Cleveland Artists and Craftsmen", "description": "The May Show: 19th Annual Exhibition of Works by Cleveland Artists and Craftsmen. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 5-June 19, 1937).", "opening_date": "1937-05-05T04:00:00" }, { "id": 345621, "title": "May Show Prints: Purchases for 1936-1938", "description": "May Show Prints: Purchases for 1936-1938. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 9-December 4, 1938).", "opening_date": "1938-11-09T05:00:00" } ], "legacy": [] }, "provenance": [ { "description": "Studio of the artist, Cleveland, OH, sold to the Print Club of Cleveland", "citations": [], "footnotes": null, "date": "1937", "sortorder": 1 }, { "description": "The Print Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art", "citations": [], "footnotes": null, "date": "1937", "sortorder": 2 }, { "description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH", "citations": [], "footnotes": null, "date": "1937-", "sortorder": 3 } ], "find_spot": null, "related_works": [], "former_accession_numbers": [], "did_you_know": "This print was part of a group of Rutka\u2019s works that won an honorable mention in the etching category at the Cleveland Museum of Art\u2019s 1937 May Show.", "early_education_description": null, "artlens_description": null, "description": "This print immediately draws the viewer\u2019s eye to a towering, ghostly tree, accomplished by a mixture of etching techniques. The titular lightning arresters\u2014devices that protect delicate electrical materials from lightning strikes\u2014stand atop a wooden structure that could be a house, barn, or equipment shed. A sense of isolation and eeriness fills the nighttime scene. Dorothy Rutka made this print while working for the Works Progress Administration but did not submit it to the program.", "external_resources": { "wikidata": [ "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80011511" ], "internet_archive": [] }, "citations": [ { "citation": "Francis, Henry S., Leona E. Prasse, and Helen S. Foote. \u201cReview of the Exhibition.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 24, no. 5 (May 1937): 65\u201380.", "page_number": "69", "url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25137848" }, { "citation": "Dorothy Rutka Entry Card to 1937 May Show. Cleveland Museum of Art May Show Records, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.", "page_number": null, "url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMS04496/" } ], "url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1937.64", "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": 117071, "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": "1937-05-19T00:00:00", "sortable_date": 1926, "date_added_to_oa": null, "date_text": "c. 1937", "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": "2026-09-18 17:15:51.596000" } }