{
"data": {
"id": 152588,
"accession_number": "1985.40",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Josef May, 1926. Otto Dix (German, 1891\u20131969). Oil, egg tempera, and other media on board; framed: 105.1 x 88.9 x 6 cm (41 3/8 x 35 x 2 3/8 in.); unframed: 84 x 68.8 cm (33 1/16 x 27 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 1985.40. \u00a9 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn",
"current_location": "225 German Expressionism & Surrealism",
"title": "Josef May",
"creation_date": "1926",
"creation_date_earliest": 1926,
"creation_date_latest": 1926,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"Germany, 20th century"
],
"technique": "oil, egg tempera, and other media on board",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Modern European Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Framed: 105.1 x 88.9 x 6 cm (41 3/8 x 35 x 2 3/8 in.); Unframed: 84 x 68.8 cm (33 1/16 x 27 1/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 1.051,
"height_inch": 41,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.375,
"width": 0.889,
"width_inch": 35,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"depth": 0.06,
"depth_inch": 2,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.375
},
"unframed": {
"height": 0.84,
"height_inch": 33,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0625,
"width": 0.688,
"width_inch": 27,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0625
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn",
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Signed lower right: \"OD. / 1926 [OD in monogram]; inscribed on back: \"Joseph May aus D\u00fcsseldorf / gemalt von O. Dix 1926\"",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 309910,
"title": "The Year in Review for 1985",
"description": "The Year in Review for 1985. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 12-April 20, 1986).",
"opening_date": "1986-02-12T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 441782,
"title": "Otto Dix - Zum 100. Geburtstag",
"description": "Otto Dix - Zum 100. Geburtstag. Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart, Stuttgart 1, Germany (organizer) (September 4-November 3, 1991).",
"opening_date": "1991-09-04T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 182153,
"title": "Monet to Dal\u00ed: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Monet to Dal\u00ed: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Beijing World Art Museum (May 26-August 27, 2006); Mori Art Center (September 16-November 26, 2006); Seoul Art Center, South Korea (December 22, 2006-March 28, 2007); Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, South Korea (April 7-May 20, 2007); Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (June 9-September 16, 2007); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008); Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN (February 15-June 1, 2008); Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT (June 22-September 21, 2008); The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (October 12, 2008-January 18, 2009).",
"opening_date": "2006-05-27T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 223570,
"title": "Otto Dix",
"description": "Otto Dix. Montr\u00e9al Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (organizer) (September 20, 2010-January 2, 2011).",
"opening_date": "2010-09-20T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Josef May, the sitter, [-1938], Holland, given to his brother-in-law, Hugo Simons.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "Hugo Simons [1892-1958] Montreal, Quebec, Canada",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Ghitta Caiserman-Roth [1923-2005], Montreal, Quebec, Canada",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "Fischer Fine Arts, London, United Kingdom, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "-1985",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1985-",
"sortorder": 5
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "A leader of the New Objectivity movement in Germany, Dix painted bitter critiques of modern capitalist society. To achieve a more incisive realism in his brutally honest portraits, he mixed egg tempera with other media. The sitter for this portrait, Josef May, was the Jewish manager of the Gr\u00fcnberg grain company in Arnsberg. When the Nazis seized power in 1933, May fled to Holland, where he died of a heart attack in 1938.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60475687"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Turner, Evan H. \u201cThe Year in Review for 1985.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 73, no. 2 (February 1986): 26\u201371.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 56; Mentioned: p. 66, no. 97",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25159930"
},
{
"citation": "Robinson, William H. \u201cOtto Dix\u2019s \u2018Portrait of Josef May.\u2019\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 74, no. 8 (October 1987): 305\u2013331.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 305-306, 326, fig. 27",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25160000"
},
{
"citation": "Olaf Peters. Otto Dix. Munich, Germany: Prestel, 2010.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 219, 249",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1985.40",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 152588,
"creators": [
{
"id": 1219,
"description": "Otto Dix (German, 1891\u20131969)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1891",
"death_year": "1969",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1985-03-25T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1926,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1926",
"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": true,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-01 06:51:18.070000"
}
}