{
"data": {
"id": 140396,
"accession_number": "1964.340",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "A Bird in the Room, 1955. Kay Sage (American, 1898\u20131963). Oil on canvas; unframed: 99.1 x 81.3 cm (39 x 32 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Kay Sage Tanguy, 1964.340. \u00a9 Estate of Kay Sage / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York",
"current_location": "226B American Modern",
"title": "A Bird in the Room",
"creation_date": "1955",
"creation_date_earliest": 1955,
"creation_date_latest": 1955,
"artists_tags": [
"female"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "oil on canvas",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "American Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "American - Painting",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Unframed: 99.1 x 81.3 cm (39 x 32 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"unframed": {
"height": 0.991,
"height_inch": 39,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.813,
"width_inch": 32,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 Estate of Kay Sage / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York",
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Signed lower left: Kay Sage '55\r\nWritten on back of stretcher: \"A Bird in the Room '55 Kay Sage/Woodbury, Conn.\"",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 304723,
"title": "Year in Review (1964)",
"description": "Year in Review (1964). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 8, 1964-January 31, 1965).",
"opening_date": "1964-12-08T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 320904,
"title": "Kay Sage, 1898-1963",
"description": "Kay Sage, 1898-1963. Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY (organizer) (January 26-March 13, 1977); Art Gallery, University of Maryland at College Park, College Park, MD (April 5-May 15, 1977); Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY (June 8-July 20, 1977).",
"opening_date": "1977-01-26T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 218287,
"title": "Double Solitaire: The Surrealist Worlds of Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy",
"description": "Double Solitaire: The Surrealist Worlds of Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy. Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY (organizer) (June 5-September 18, 2011); Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley, MA (October 8, 2011-January 8, 2012); Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC (February 11, 2012-May 13, 2013).",
"opening_date": "2011-06-05T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Catherine Viviano Gallery, New York, \"Kay Sage: Exhibition of Paintings,\" January 3-28, 1956, no. 7.",
"opening_date": "1956-01-03T05:00:00Z"
},
{
"description": "Catherine Viviano Gallery, New York, \"Kay Sage Retrospective Exhibition, 1937-1958,\" April 5-30, 1960, no. 45.",
"opening_date": "1960-04-05T05:00:00Z"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Kay Sage [1898-1963], Woodbury, CT, bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1955-1964",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1964-",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "To maintain her own identity, Sage often refused to exhibit with her husband, also an artist.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Kay Sage created this work, one of her most somber and desolate, shortly after the death of her husband, fellow Surrealist painter Yves Tanguy (1900\u20131955). The title likely refers to the folk legend that says a wild bird flying into a house is a premonition of death\u2014an actual event that Sage experienced shortly before Tanguy passed away. After his unexpected death, Sage developed a degenerative sight disease that caused blurred vision and made it difficult for her to paint. She devoted her time to writing poetry and creating small collages but lived with depression, eventually dying by suicide in 1963.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60469230"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Porter, Fairfield. \"Kay Sage,\" Art News 54 (January 1956).",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 56; Reproduced: p. 56",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Breuning, Margaret. \"Kay Sage,\" Arts 30 (January 1956).",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 49",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Devree, Howard. \"Reality and Fantasy.\" New York Times, January 8, 1956.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 19",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Kay Sage Retrospective Exhibition, 1937-1958, exh. cat. (New York: Catherine Viviano Gallery, 1960)",
"page_number": "Reproduced: n. 45",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "\"Annual Report for 1964,\" The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art 52 (June 1965).",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 156-157",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "\"Year in Review,\" The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art 52 (November 1965).",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 157",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Bailey, Holly M. Kay Sage, 1898-1963. Ithaca, NY: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, 1977.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: n. 53",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Andre, Tomas. \"Kay Sage: Exploring the Conscious Unconscious.\" Ithaca Post, Art section, February 27, 1977.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Appelhof, Ruth Ann. \"Kay Sage: the Super-Reality of Dreams and Modern Women Artists.\" Syracuse Guide Visual Arts section, May 1977.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Miller, Stephen R. \"The Surrealist Imagery of Kay Sage,\" Art International 26 (September - October 1983).",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 45; Reproduced: p. 44",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Suther, Judith D. A House of Her Own: Kay Sage, Solitary Surrealist. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 167-171; Reproduced: p. 39",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Miller, Stephen Robeson, Jonathan Stuhlman. Double Solitaire: The Surreal Worlds of Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy. ed. Nancy Wallach. Katonah, N.Y.: Katonah Museum of Art, 2011.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 98, no. 44",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Miller, Stephen Robeson, Jessie Sentivan, Mary Ann Caws, and Kay Sage. Kay Sage: Catalogue Raisonne\u0301. New York, NY : DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2018.",
"page_number": "jMentioned & reproduced: p. 290-291, pl. 1955.3",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1964.340",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Bequest of Kay Sage Tanguy",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": "Hammond Hemmelgarn Family Gallery",
"athena_id": 140396,
"creators": [
{
"id": 3631,
"description": "Kay Sage (American, 1898\u20131963)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1898",
"death_year": "1963",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1964-10-31T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1955,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1955",
"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": "2026-08-21 12:43:16.582000"
}
}