{
"data": {
"id": 143617,
"accession_number": "1967.77",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Untitled, 1961. Lee Bontecou (American, 1931\u20132022). Welded steel, canvas, and wire; overall: 132.1 x 121.6 x 30.5 cm (52 x 47 7/8 x 12 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Contemporary Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1967.77. \u00a9 Lee Bontecou",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Untitled",
"creation_date": "1961",
"creation_date_earliest": 1961,
"creation_date_latest": 1961,
"artists_tags": [
"female"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "Welded steel, canvas, and wire",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Contemporary Art",
"collection": "CONTEMP - Sculpture",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 132.1 x 121.6 x 30.5 cm (52 x 47 7/8 x 12 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 1.321,
"width": 1.216,
"depth": 0.305
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 Lee Bontecou",
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 301129,
"title": "Year in Review: 1967",
"description": "Year in Review: 1967. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 29-December 31, 1967).",
"opening_date": "1967-11-29T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 343945,
"title": "Lee Bontecou: A Retrospective",
"description": "Lee Bontecou: A Retrospective. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Chicago, IL (organizer) (co-organizer) (March 25-May 7, 1972).",
"opening_date": "1972-03-25T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 343948,
"title": "Vitality of Vision: Works by Women in Sculpture",
"description": "Vitality of Vision: Works by Women in Sculpture. Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH (organizer) (March 20-May 10, 1987).",
"opening_date": "1987-03-20T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 393229,
"title": "Contemporary Installation",
"description": "Contemporary Installation. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer).",
"opening_date": "2021-04-12T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Sculpture and Relief. Leo Castelli Gallery, New York (May 23-June 1961).",
"opening_date": "1961-05-23T04:00:00Z"
},
{
"description": "Decade .7. Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL (April 16 -May 16, 1967).",
"opening_date": "1967-04-16T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Collection of the artist",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
},
{
"description": "(Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1968",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1967-",
"sortorder": 4
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "In the early 1960s, Lee Bontecou often used found objects to create her hanging sculptures, including canvas from conveyor belts discarded by a laundry below her East Village apartment and salvaged metal and wire.",
"description": "In the early 1960s, Bontecou challenged artistic conventions through her creation of three-dimensional wall constructions that were neither sculpture nor painting, but a hybrid of the two. To construct this work, Bontecou used found objects such as welded steel, wire, and various types of canvas. An abstract form, riddled with dark openings that allude to bodily orifices, lunar craters, and gas masks, the work explores the relationship between the living and the machine.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60780790"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. \u201cLee Bontecou, Untitled.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 56, no. 2 (February 1969).",
"page_number": "Reproduced p. 79; mentioned p. 78-80",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152183."
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. \"Year in Review, 1967,\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 54 (December 1967).",
"page_number": "Reproduced p. 331, no. 134, mentioned p. 346.",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152218."
},
{
"citation": "\u201cAccessions of American and Canadian Museums: October - December, 1967.\u201d Art Quarterly 31, no. 2 (Summer 1968).",
"page_number": "Reproduced p. 230; mentioned p. 226",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. Art of the Twentieth Century in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Dept. of Art History & Education, CMA, 1969.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 4 Reproduced: p. 6",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/20thCenturyArtCMA/page/n7"
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: P. 114",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, David Franklin, and C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012.",
"page_number": "Reproduced p. 327; mentioned p. 326.",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Henning, Edward B. Art of the Twentieth Century in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.",
"page_number": "Reproduced p. 6.",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Henning, Edward B. \u201cThe Art Museum and the Avant-Garde.\u201d Art Journal 30, no. 1 (Autumn 1970): 20-26.",
"page_number": "Reproduced p. 22.",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Huntley, David C., ed. Decade .7: Contemporary American Art, 1967. Exh. Cat. Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University, 1967",
"page_number": "Cat. No. 5",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Smith, Elizabeth A. T., ed. Lee Bontecou: A Retrospective. Exh. Cat. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, published in association with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2003.",
"page_number": "Reproduced pgs. 39 and 225, Plate 28.",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1967.77",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Contemporary Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 143617,
"creators": [
{
"id": 3831,
"description": "Lee Bontecou (American, 1931\u20132022)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1931",
"death_year": "2022",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1968-01-12T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1961,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1961",
"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 00:09:54.226000"
}
}