{
"data": {
"id": 127315,
"accession_number": "1949.65",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Apples in a Basket, 1949. Dorothy Rutka (American, 1907\u20131985). Mezzotint and etching. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland, 1949.65",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Apples in a Basket",
"creation_date": "1949",
"creation_date_earliest": 1949,
"creation_date_latest": 1949,
"artists_tags": [
"Cleveland Institute of Art (alumni)",
"female",
"May Show"
],
"culture": [
"America, Ohio, Cleveland"
],
"technique": "mezzotint and etching",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "wove paper",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Prints",
"collection": "PR - Mezzotint",
"type": "Print",
"dimensions": {},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": "10",
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Titled in pencil on bottom left beneath design: Apples in a Basket",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
},
{
"inscription": "Signed in pencil on bottom right beneath design: D Rutka Kennon",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 383016,
"title": "The May Show: 31st Annual Exhibition of Works by Cleveland Artists and Craftsmen",
"description": "The May Show: 31st Annual Exhibition of Works by Cleveland Artists and Craftsmen. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 3-June 12, 1949).",
"opening_date": "1949-05-03T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Studio of the artist, Cleveland, OH, sold to the Print Club of Cleveland",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1949",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Print Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1949",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1949-",
"sortorder": 3
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "In 1946, Rutka donated works to be sold at the Strike Kitchen Dinner of C. I. O. United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers to assist families of striking workers.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "This abstract, collage-style print distorts a view of apples by repeating and overlapping them in various sizes. Unlike many of Dorothy Rutka\u2019s other works, it uses Cubist elements to disrupt the viewer\u2019s understanding of the image. The two apples in the bottom right have sharp shadow lines that form a grid with the fabric below, unifying the disparate elements. The apparent translucence of the shaded half of one apple, revealing two smaller apples, further warps the space.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79907159"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Milliken, William M. \u201cReview of the Exhibition.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 36, no. 5 (May 1949): 64\u201382.",
"page_number": "68",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25141553"
},
{
"citation": "Dorothy Rutka Entry Card to 1949 May Show. Cleveland Museum of Art May Show Records, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
"page_number": null,
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMS08660/"
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1949.65",
"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": 127315,
"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": "1949-05-02T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1949,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1949",
"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": "2026-09-19 12:14:14.165000"
}
}