{
"data": {
"id": 124994,
"accession_number": "1946.435",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Steel into the Sky, c. 1932. Max Kalish (American, born Russian Empire [now Lithuania], 1891\u20131945). Bronze; overall: 47.6 x 28 x 11.5 cm (18 3/4 x 11 x 4 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Friends of the Artist, 1946.435",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Steel into the Sky",
"creation_date": "c. 1932",
"creation_date_earliest": 1930,
"creation_date_latest": 1945,
"artists_tags": [
"May Show",
"male",
"Cleveland Institute of Art (alumni)",
"Jewish artists"
],
"culture": [
"America, Ohio, Cleveland"
],
"technique": "bronze",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "American Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "American - Sculpture",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 47.6 x 28 x 11.5 cm (18 3/4 x 11 x 4 1/2 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.476,
"width": 0.28,
"depth": 0.115
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Signed back of base: \"M KALISH\"; scratched on back: \"Modern Art Foundry, NY\"; illegible seal stamped on back",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 411184,
"title": "The Human Figure in American Sculpture: A Question of Modernity",
"description": "The Human Figure in American Sculpture: A Question of Modernity. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (organizer) (February 23-May 14, 1995); Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts (June 22-September 10, 1995); Wichita Art Museum (October 19, 1995-January 7, 1996); National Academy of Design Museum and School of Fine Arts (February 15-May 5, 1996).",
"opening_date": "1995-02-23T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 311873,
"title": "Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946",
"description": "Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 19-July 21, 1996).",
"opening_date": "1996-05-19T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"description": null,
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79649456"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Kalish, Max. Labor Sculpture. New York, 1938.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: plate 40",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Robinson, William H., et. al. Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.",
"page_number": "Reproduced and Mentioned: p.116",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1946.435",
"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": 124994,
"creators": [
{
"id": 19266,
"description": "Max Kalish (American, born Russian Empire [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": 1930,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1932",
"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": "2026-03-27 00:10:49.639000"
}
}