{
"data": {
"id": 151304,
"accession_number": "1983.159",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "First Study for Vertical Construction, 1939. Theodore Roszak (American, born Kingdom of Prussia [now Poland], 1907\u20131981). Plastic and painted wood; overall: 61.8 x 32.4 x 10.2 cm (24 5/16 x 12 3/4 x 4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Cleveland Society for Contemporary Art in honor of Dr. and Mrs. Sherman E. Lee, 1983.159. \u00a9 Estate of Theodore Roszak / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY",
"current_location": null,
"title": "First Study for Vertical Construction",
"creation_date": "1939",
"creation_date_earliest": 1939,
"creation_date_latest": 1939,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America, New York"
],
"technique": "plastic and painted wood",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "American Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "American - Sculpture",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 61.8 x 32.4 x 10.2 cm (24 5/16 x 12 3/4 x 4 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.618,
"height_inch": 24,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.3125,
"width": 0.324,
"width_inch": 12,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"depth": 0.102,
"depth_inch": 4,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 Estate of Theodore Roszak / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY",
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "signed lower right: T. J. Roszak '39",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 181802,
"title": "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).",
"opening_date": "2006-06-09T00:00:00"
},
{
"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"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "CMA 1984: \"Year in Review 1983,\" Bulletin, LXXI (February 1984), p. 72, no. 103, repr. p. 64",
"opening_date": "1984-02-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "MOCA Cleveland (6/9/2006 - 8/20/2006): \"The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art\", no. 77, p. 120, color repr. p. 68.",
"opening_date": "2006-06-09T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "During the 1950s, Theodore Roszak created a one-ton aluminum eagle to surmount the US Embassy building in London, which is now a luxury hotel.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Plastic was a relatively new material when Theodore Roszak incorporated it into this sculpture. The artist\u2019s interest in precisely ordered geometric forms reflects his general stated aim to produce a \u201cutopian symbol of perfection.\u201d Later, in 1943, Roszak revisited this composition and made a larger version of it.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79934589"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Turner, Evan H. \u201cYear in Review for 1983.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 71, no. 2 (February 1984): 38\u201379.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 72, no. 103; Reproduced: p. 64",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25159848"
},
{
"citation": "Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content, and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: P. 68, no. 77",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1983.159",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of the Cleveland Society for Contemporary Art in honor of Dr. and Mrs. Sherman E. Lee",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 151304,
"creators": [
{
"id": 14356,
"description": "Theodore Roszak (American, born Kingdom of Prussia [now Poland], 1907\u20131981)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "sculptor",
"biography": "Theodore Roszak American, b. Prussia, 1907-1981 Theodore Roszak was a painter and sculptor whose interest in modern European art and the writings of L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Moholy-Nagy led him to experiment with photograms in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Although born in Posen (now Poznan, Poland), Roszak grew up in Chicago. While in high school he took evening classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, enrolling there as a full-time student in 1925. In 1926 he moved to New York City, where he studied briefly with Charles Hawthorne at the National Academy of Design and then privately with painter George Luks. He also attended classes in logic and philosophy at Columbia University. The next year he returned to Chicago, resuming his studies at the Art Institute. In 1929 Roszak was awarded a fellowship which allowed him to travel in Europe for two years; during this time he became acquainted with constructivism and the philosophy of the Bauhaus. He returned to the United States in 1931, settling in New York City. His work of this period reflected the influence of constructivist aesthetics. By the mid-1930s he was primarily producing wall reliefs and freestanding geometric constructions made from plastic and wood. From about 1937-41 Roszak began making photograms (cameraless photographs) as a way to experiment with light and geometric form. He also incorporated photograms into his teaching curriculum at the Design Laboratory, an experimental school inspired by the principles of the Bauhaus and Moholy-Nagy (funded by the government under the wpa), where he taught from 1938\u201340. During these years he produced hundreds of photograms, which he never exhibited. From 1940-56 Roszak taught at Sarah Lawrence College. During World War II he taught aircraft mechanics and built airplanes at the Brewster Aircraft Corporation in New Jersey. After the war his sculpture, now created out of welded metal, shifted from a concern with geometric shapes to an interest in more organic, expressionistic forms. Roszak continued to be active as a sculptor throughout the 1960s and from 1970\u201372 taught at Columbia University. The Cleveland Museum of Art also owns two sculptures by Roszak. M.M.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1907",
"death_year": "1981",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1983-10-12T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1939,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1939",
"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": "2026-08-20 12:30:35.319000"
}
}