{
"data": {
"id": 153772,
"accession_number": "1987.69",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Akron Nightscape # 1 (The River), 1986. Penny Rakoff (American, b. 1951). Chromogenic process color print (Ektacolor); image: 35.8 x 46.7 cm (14 1/8 x 18 3/8 in.); paper: 40.5 x 50.7 cm (15 15/16 x 19 15/16 in.); matted: 71.1 x 81.3 cm (28 x 32 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Herbert Ascherman Jr., May Show Purchase Award for Photography, 1990, 1987.69",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Akron Nightscape # 1 (The River)",
"creation_date": "1986",
"creation_date_earliest": 1986,
"creation_date_latest": 1986,
"artists_tags": [
"Jewish artists",
"female",
"May Show"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "chromogenic process color print (Ektacolor)",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Photography",
"collection": "PH - American 1951-Present",
"type": "Photograph",
"measurements": "Image: 35.8 x 46.7 cm (14 1/8 x 18 3/8 in.); Paper: 40.5 x 50.7 cm (15 15/16 x 19 15/16 in.); Matted: 71.1 x 81.3 cm (28 x 32 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"image": {
"height": 0.358,
"height_inch": 14,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.125,
"width": 0.467,
"width_inch": 18,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.375
},
"paper": {
"height": 0.405,
"height_inch": 15,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.9375,
"width": 0.507,
"width_inch": 19,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.9375
},
"matted": {
"height": 0.711,
"height_inch": 28,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.813,
"width_inch": 32,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Written in black ink on recto: \"Akron Nightscape #1 (The River) Penny Rakoff [signed] 1986\"",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 311731,
"title": "The May Show: 68th Annual Exhibition of Works by Artists and Craftsmen of the Western Reserve",
"description": "The May Show: 68th Annual Exhibition of Works by Artists and Craftsmen of the Western Reserve. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 22-May 31, 1987).",
"opening_date": "1987-04-22T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 310231,
"title": "The Year in Review for 1987",
"description": "The Year in Review for 1987. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 24-April 17, 1988).",
"opening_date": "1988-02-24T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 311875,
"title": "Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997).",
"opening_date": "1996-11-24T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "CMA, April 22 - May 31, 1987: \"68th May Show,\" CMA Bulletin, 74 (April 1987), p. 181, repr. p. 169.",
"opening_date": "1987-04-22T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "CMA, February 24 - April 17, 1988: \"Year in Review 1987,\" CMA Bulletin, 75 (February 1988), p. 67, no. 82.",
"opening_date": "1988-02-24T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "CMA, November 20,1996 - February 2, 1997: \"Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art.\"",
"opening_date": "1997-02-02T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "In the late 1970s, Penny Rakoff began to make nocturnal color photographs exploring both the effects of artificial light and the technical properties of her medium. In Akron Nightscape #1 (The River), she used a long exposure to record the various lights illuminating the water's edge and the distant city. The image suggests a mysterious, forlorn landscape, existing somewhere between night and day.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79940040"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Penny Rakoff Entry Card to 1987 May Show. Cleveland Museum of Art May Show Records, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
"page_number": null,
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMS17678"
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 271",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1987.69",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Herbert Ascherman Jr., May Show Purchase Award for Photography, 1990",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 153772,
"creators": [
{
"id": 802,
"description": "Penny Rakoff (American, b. 1951)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Penny Rakoff American, 1951- An astute understanding of color and light characterizes the images of Penny Rakoff. Trained in painting at the University of Michigan, Rakoff has translated her interest in color theory and composition to her photographic work. By controlling and manipulating natural and artificial light in extended night-time exposures, she conjures spectral, often surreal displays from otherwise banal subject matter. For Color Pleasures of Miami, her earliest body of photographs in this vein (1978), Rakoff traveled the Florida city and its suburbs. The preponderance of illuminated palm trees, lawn ornaments, and glowing swimming pools proved an environment well suited to her concerns. She has continued to explore the fabricated nature of American culture in Akron Landscapes, seeking out residential and industrial sites to photograph at night in her trademark aurora of lights. Rakoff was born in New York City and raised on Long Island. After earning her B.F.A. from the University of Michigan (1973), she pursued photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology (M.F.A., 1976) and with Nathan Lyons at the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester (1978). After teaching for a year at the State University of New York College at Oswego, in 1978 Rakoff relocated to Ohio to accept a position at the University of Akron, where she continues to teach. She is the recipient of awards from the Ohio Arts Council (1981, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1994) and from the Cleveland Museum of Art for her entries in the museum's regional juried exhibition, the May Show (1984, 1987). In recent years, Rakoff has also turned her attention to the production of public art and installations. She lives in Cleveland. A.W.
Biographical information exists in the Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1951",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1987-08-19T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1986,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1986",
"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": "2026-05-01 06:51:24.867000"
}
}