id: 153224
accession number: 1986.195
share license status: Copyrighted
url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1986.195
updated: 2023-04-22 12:24:31.838000
Plowing Peasant, c. 1904. Heinrich Kuehn (Austrian, 1866–1944). Gum bichromate print; image: 29.7 x 39.8 cm (11 11/16 x 15 11/16 in.); matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1986.195
title: Plowing Peasant
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creation date: c. 1904
creation date earliest: 1899
creation date latest: 1909
current location:
creditline: John L. Severance Fund
copyright:
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culture: Austria, 20th century
technique: gum bichromate print
department: Photography
collection: PH - Austrian
type: Photograph
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CREATORS
* Heinrich Kuehn (Austrian, 1866–1944) - artist
Heinrich Kuehn Austrian, b. Germany, 1866-1944
Carl Christian Heinrich Kuehn (also spelled Kühn) was a key figure in the aesthetic movement in photography, as well as a teacher, writer, and theoretician. Born in Dresden, he studied medicine and science in Innsbruck, Leipzig, Berlin, and Freiburg before beginning to photograph in 1883. In Austria and Germany, Kuehn's role was not unlike that of Alfred Stieglitz in the United States. Not surprisingly, after the two men met in 1904, they remained close friends for many years.
Kuehn believed in the artistic manipulation of the photographic image and was responsible for refinements in the gum bichromate process, through which a photograph could be made to resemble paintings and prints more closely. Among his influences were the early Scottish calotypists David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, who were also acknowledged by Stieglitz, and whose prints combined the softness conveyed by their paper negatives with a formality of composition and depth of tone derived from painting.
Kuehn had a long, productive career, during which he worked with Hans Watzek and Hugo Henneberg on multiple gum bichromate processes. Besides exhibiting and publishing widely, he founded and directed the Schule für Kunstlerische Photographie in Innsbruck (1914-20) and formed the Viennese Trifolium (Das Kleeblatt). He wrote and published two technical manuals and many articles. An inventor and designer of photographic processes and equipment, Kuehn was elected into the Linked Ring in 1895, was a member of the Vienna Camera Club, and received numerous awards and recognition for his work. T.W.F.
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measurements: Image: 29.7 x 39.8 cm (11 11/16 x 15 11/16 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
title: Year in Review for 1986
opening date: 1987-02-04T05:00:00
Year in Review for 1986. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 4-March 15, 1987).
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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS
* Munich, Stefan Lennert (September 1-September 25, 1981); Zurich, Galerie Zur Stockeregg (September 1-October 31, 1981); Koln, Galerie Rudolf Kicken (November 20, 1981-January 22, 1982); Hamburg, Photo Galerie Droscher (March 20-May 29, 1982); Washington, D.C., Lunn Gallery (July-August, 1982); Paris, Baudoin Lebon (September 23-October 30, 1982): "An Exhibition of One Hundred Photographs by Heinrich Kuhn," repr. p. 48, no. 77.
CMA, February 4 - March 15, 1987: "Year in Review 1986," CMA Bulletin, 74 (February 1987), p. 65, no. 81.
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PROVENANCE
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RELATED WORKS
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CITATIONS
Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.
page number: Reproduced: P. 218
url:
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IMAGES