{
"data": {
"id": 147862,
"accession_number": "1974.22",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "The Red Light, 1972. George Segal (American, 1924\u20132000). Plaster and mixed media; overall: 289.5 x 243.8 x 91.4 cm (114 x 96 x 36 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund, 1974.22. \u00a9 Estate of William Schwedler / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY",
"current_location": null,
"title": "The Red Light",
"creation_date": "1972",
"creation_date_earliest": 1972,
"creation_date_latest": 1972,
"artists_tags": [
"male",
"Jewish artists"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "plaster and mixed media",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Contemporary Art",
"collection": "CONTEMP - Sculpture",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 289.5 x 243.8 x 91.4 cm (114 x 96 x 36 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 2.895,
"width": 2.438,
"depth": 0.914
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 Estate of William Schwedler / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY",
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 301821,
"title": "Contemporary American Artists",
"description": "Contemporary American Artists. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (December 18, 1973-February 10, 1974).",
"opening_date": "1973-12-18T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 302084,
"title": "Year in Review: 1974",
"description": "Year in Review: 1974. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 11-April 6, 1975).",
"opening_date": "1975-03-11T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 302145,
"title": "Traditions and Revisions: Themes from the History of Sculpture",
"description": "Traditions and Revisions: Themes from the History of Sculpture. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 24-November 16, 1975).",
"opening_date": "1975-09-24T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 302349,
"title": "Materials and Techniques of 20th-Century Artists",
"description": "Materials and Techniques of 20th-Century Artists. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 17, 1976-January 2, 1977).",
"opening_date": "1976-11-17T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 443848,
"title": "George Segal: Sculptures",
"description": "George Segal: Sculptures. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (organizer) (October 29, 1978-January 7, 1979); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA (February 18-April 1, 1979); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (May 16-July 8, 1979).",
"opening_date": "1978-10-29T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 441481,
"title": "Gallery One 2012",
"description": "Gallery One 2012. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 12, 2012-March 5, 2017).",
"opening_date": "2012-12-12T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 313809,
"title": "Life is a Highway: American Car Culture",
"description": "Life is a Highway: American Car Culture. The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH (organizer) (June 15-September 15, 2019).",
"opening_date": "2019-06-15T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 383281,
"title": "Stories from Storage",
"description": "Stories from Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).",
"opening_date": "2021-02-06T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "CMA 1973: \"Contemporary American Artists,\" cat. #24, repr. p. 17",
"opening_date": "1973-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "CMA 1975: \"Year in Review 1974,\" Bulletin, LXII (March 1975), p. 102, cat. #138, repr. p. 87",
"opening_date": "1975-03-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "CMA 1975: \"Traditions and Revisions,\" cat. #116, repr. p. 136",
"opening_date": "1975-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "CMA 1976: \"Materials and Techniques of 20th Century Artists,\" cat. #9",
"opening_date": "1976-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Minneapolis, MN, Walker Art Center, 1978-1979: \"George Segal: Sculptures,\" cat. no. 28, repr. p. 82 (Approved: Trustees' Meg 7/25/1977).",
"opening_date": "1977-07-25T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [
"former loan number"
],
"did_you_know": "Segal pioneered the unique use of plaster bandages to make his sculpted figures.",
"description": "George Segal began his career as a figurative painter, but in the 1960s his interest turned toward \"the theater of the street,\" and he began to create three-dimensional \"environments.\" Built like stage sets that incorporated real objects as props\u2014the truck in The Red Light was Segal's own\u2014the settings usually evoke an urban environment. Segal felt that \"a minute of existence is miraculous and extraordinary.\" His work freezes those minutes, allowing them to be studied in depth. To achieve this effect in The Red Light, Segal worked with a live model, soaking cloth in a durable white industrial plaster to cast the figure in sections. He then cut the cast into sections, reassembled the pieces, and adjusted the pose. The figure's all-white surface and lack of specific facial features convey a sadly anonymous presence, offering a metaphor for the reality of city life.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79927478"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "\u201cAcquisitions of Modern Art by Museums.\u201d The Burlington Magazine CXVII (May 1975), mentioned p. 328, reproduced p. 334, no. 90.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Henning, Edward B. \u201cThe Red Light by George Segal.\u201d CMA Bulletin LXIII, vol. 63, no. 5, (May 1976), mentioned p.146-150, reproduced p.147, fig. 1.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Hunter, Sam. George Segal. New York: Rizzoli, 1984, pp. 54, 58, reproduced color fig. 50, p. 57.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Lym, Glenn Robert. \u201cWhen Places Include People: Edward Hopper and George Segal.\u201d Places: A Quarterly Journal of Environmental Design, vol. 2, no. 1, (1985), mentioned p.28-29, reproduced p.29, no. 14.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Lee, Sherman E. \u201cThe Year in Review for 1974.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 62, no. 3 (March 1975): 62\u2013102.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 62, 64, 102; Reproduced: p. 86, no. 138",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152580"
},
{
"citation": "Henning, Edward B. \u201cSky Cathedral-Moon Garden Wall by Louise Nevelson.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 64, no. 7 (September 1977): 242\u201351.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 243-244",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25159539"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 256",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n276"
},
{
"citation": "Greenberg, Jan, and Sandra Jordan. The Sculptor\u2019s Eye : Looking at Contemporary American Art. New York: Delacorte Press, 1993.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 44-45, fig. 15",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Lucie-Smith, Edward. \"Artistic Trends.\" \u85dd\u8853\u5bb6 = Yi shu jia 589, no. 6 (June 2024): 278-289",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 286",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1974.22",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 147862,
"creators": [
{
"id": 3950,
"description": "George Segal (American, 1924\u20132000)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1924",
"death_year": "2000",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1974-03-08T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1972,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1972",
"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 00:09:59.638000"
}
}