{
"data": {
"id": 124993,
"accession_number": "1946.434",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Riding the Crane, c. 1926. Max Kalish (American, born Russia [now Lithuania], 1891\u20131945). Bronze; overall: 51.4 x 32.4 x 15.3 cm (20 1/4 x 12 3/4 x 6 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Friends of the Artist, 1946.434",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Riding the Crane",
"creation_date": "c. 1926",
"creation_date_earliest": 1921,
"creation_date_latest": 1931,
"artists_tags": [
"male",
"Jewish artists",
"May Show",
"Cleveland Institute of Art (alumni)"
],
"culture": [
"America, Ohio, Cleveland"
],
"technique": "bronze",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "American Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "American - Sculpture",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 51.4 x 32.4 x 15.3 cm (20 1/4 x 12 3/4 x 6 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.514,
"height_inch": 20,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.25,
"width": 0.324,
"width_inch": 12,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"depth": 0.153,
"depth_inch": 6,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Signed on base: \"M. KALISH\"",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"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"
},
{
"id": 309906,
"title": "The American Way in Sculpture 1890-1930",
"description": "The American Way in Sculpture 1890-1930. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 12-October 19, 1986).",
"opening_date": "1986-08-12T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Max Kalish won a scholarship to study at the Cleveland School (now Institute) of Art when he was 15 years old.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Max Kalish's celebratory sculptures of laborers rank as his most admired works. Although he was based in Cleveland and New York, the artist often had his bronzes cast during annual trips to Paris. His creative philosophy is summed up in the statement, \"We must learn to create from the living present. In this modern industrial age, tremendous, heroic tasks are being performed and it is here that we will find our greatest art expression.\"",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79649450"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Solender, Katherine. The American Way in Sculpture, 1890-1930. Cleveland, OH: Published by the Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1986.",
"page_number": "cat. #51, p. 51, repr.",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Kraynak, Scott, Henry Adams, Douglas Max Utter, William G. Scheele, R. A. Washington, and Mike Hudson. The Heart of Cleveland. Shaker Hts, OH: Red Giant Books, 2018.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 23, fig. 15",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1946.434",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of Friends of the Artist",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 124993,
"creators": [
{
"id": 19266,
"description": "Max Kalish (American, born Russia [now Lithuania], 1891\u20131945)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "sculptor",
"biography": "Born in Valozin, Lithuania, Max Kalish immigrated with his family to Cleveland in 1898. Shortly after their arrival they changed the family name from Kalichik to Kalish. At the age of 15 he won a scholarship from the Cleveland School of Art and studied sculpture under Herman Matzen. In 1910 Kalish enrolled in the National Academy of Design in New York. After returning to Cleveland in early 1912, he briefly shared a studio with William Zorach. Kalish traveled to Europe in 1912\u201313, studying at the \u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts and the Acad\u00e9mie Colarossi in Paris, and exhibiting in the Paris Salon (1913). He worked as a sculptor for the Panama-Specific Exposition in San Francisco, 1913\u201314, returning to Cleveland the following year. His first solo exhibition was at Korner & Wood Galleries in Cleveland (1916). He served in the army during World War I. In 1921 he began creating bronze sculptures devoted to the theme of labor and completed the last in 1938. In 1923 Cleveland school children collected small change to fund the casting of Kalish\u2019s large-scale monument to Abraham Lincoln, which was installed in front of the School Administration Building. During the 1920s his sculptures appeared in solo shows in Cleveland and New York. He participated in the annual May Shows at the Cleveland Museum of Art (1924\u201330) as well as the annuals of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and the Art Institute of Chicago. In the late 1920s he began a series of marble figures that were exhibited at the Grand Central Art Galleries in New York. By 1933 he had moved to New York, where he established a private school for teaching sculpture techniques. Kalish died in New York.
\"Transformations in Cleveland Art\" (CMA, 1996), p. 231",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1891",
"death_year": "1945",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1946-11-25T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1921,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1926",
"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": "2026-09-03 11:07:42.488000"
}
}