id: 122916
accession number: 1943.175
share license status: Copyrighted
url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1943.175
updated: 2022-01-07 22:46:02.252000
Impromptu, 1938. Henry Keller (American, 1869-1949). Color lithograph; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland 1943.175
title: Impromptu
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creation date: 1938
creation date earliest: 1938
creation date latest: 1938
current location:
creditline: Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland
copyright:
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culture: America, Ohio, Cleveland
technique: color lithograph
department: Prints
collection: PR - Lithograph
type: Print
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CREATORS
* Henry Keller (American, 1869-1949) - artist
A leader of the Cleveland modernist movement, Henry Keller grew up in the city and enrolled in the Western Reserve School of Design for Women in 1887. In 1890 he went to Karlsruhe, Germany, for a year of study with Hermann Baisch. Unable to find a teaching position after returning to Cleveland, Keller worked for eight years at the Morgan Lithograph Company, where he specialized in designing circus posters. In 1899 he returned to Germany to study at art academies in Düsseldorf and Munich. In 1902, after receiving a silver medal at the Munich Kunstakademie’ s spring exhibition, he returned to Cleveland. Around 1903 he began teaching at the Cleveland School of Art, first as a part-time watercolor instructor, then as full-time instructor of decorative illustration. He also taught private classes on family-owned farmland in Berlin Heights, Ohio, during summers from 1903 to 1914. In the 1910s he championed the cause of modern art through lectures and teaching. He exhibited in the Armory Show (1913) and the annuals of the Carnegie Institute of Art in Pittsburgh. The Cleveland School of Art sponsored several solo exhibitions of his paintings. He exhibited in the annual May Shows at the Cleveland Museum of Art (1919–50) and in annuals at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. When he retired from the Cleveland School of Art in 1945, Keller moved to San Diego, where he died.
Transformations in Cleveland Art. (CMA, 1996), p. 232
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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
title: A Lasting Impression: Gifts of the Print Club of Cleveland
opening date: 2019-05-05T04:00:00
A Lasting Impression: Gifts of the Print Club of Cleveland. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 5-September 22, 2019).
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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS
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PROVENANCE
Print Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
date: after 1938-1943
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Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
date: 1943-
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fun fact:
Henry Keller's first work as a commercial lithographer involved printing circus posters.
digital description:
Cleveland-born artist Henry Keller frequently worked in lithography throughout his long career. Many artists collaborated with a master printer, but Keller could print his work himself; he was extremely knowledgeable about the technique after having apprenticed with a commercial lithographer for almost a decade as a young man. In prints such as this one, he combined his professional knowledge with an interest in the human figure and expressive mark making: two female nudes are reduced to simple forms and surrounded with repetitive, gestural lines that suggest Keller’s continuing interest in abstraction.
wall description:
Cleveland-born artist Henry Keller frequently worked in lithography throughout his long career. Many artists collaborated with a master printer, but Keller could print his work himself; he was extremely knowledgeable about the technique after having apprenticed with a commercial lithographer for almost a decade as a young man. In prints such as this one, he combined his professional knowledge with an interest in the human figure and expressive mark making: two female nudes are reduced to simple forms and surrounded with repetitive, gestural lines that suggest Keller’s continuing interest in abstraction.
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RELATED WORKS
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IMAGES