{
"data": {
"id": 155955,
"accession_number": "1991.242",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Always Camels, 1922, printed 1980. Ralph Steiner (American, 1899\u20131986). Gelatin silver print; image: 9.5 x 12.1 cm (3 3/4 x 4 3/4 in.); paper: 10.1 x 12.6 cm (4 x 4 15/16 in.); matted: 30.6 x 35.6 cm (12 1/16 x 14 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1991.242. \u00a9 Estate of Ralph Steiner",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Always Camels",
"creation_date": "1922, printed 1980",
"creation_date_earliest": 1922,
"creation_date_latest": 1980,
"artists_tags": [
"male",
"Jewish artists"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "gelatin silver print",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Photography",
"collection": "PH - American 1900-1950",
"type": "Photograph",
"measurements": "Image: 9.5 x 12.1 cm (3 3/4 x 4 3/4 in.); Paper: 10.1 x 12.6 cm (4 x 4 15/16 in.); Matted: 30.6 x 35.6 cm (12 1/16 x 14 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"image": {
"height": 0.095,
"width": 0.121
},
"paper": {
"height": 0.101,
"width": 0.126
},
"matted": {
"height": 0.306,
"width": 0.356
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 Estate of Ralph Steiner",
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Written in pencil on verso: \"Ralph Steiner [signed], neg. 1922 / print 1980\"",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 194095,
"title": "Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 24-September 16, 2007).",
"opening_date": "2007-06-24T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 393871,
"title": "A New York Minute: Street Photography, 1920\u20131950",
"description": "A New York Minute: Street Photography, 1920\u20131950. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 11-November 7, 2021).",
"opening_date": "2021-07-10T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art (6/24/07 - 9/16/07); \"Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art\", no exhibition catalogue.",
"opening_date": "2007-06-24T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"description": "Born and raised in Cleveland to a working-class family, Ralph Steiner earned a degree in chemical engineering from Dartmouth College but, after graduation, opted to become a freelance photographer in New York City. In the early 1920s, the boom period in America for the incorporation of photography in print advertising, Steiner\u2019s major source of income was producing ad layouts for magazines. Those jobs supported his personal artwork, which included photographing the urban environment. His cityscapes often featured signage, which dominated commercial districts throughout the city and mirrored the rise of consumerism in the prosperous 1920s.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79944656"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 329",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1991.242",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "John L. Severance Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 155955,
"creators": [
{
"id": 944,
"description": "Ralph Steiner (American, 1899\u20131986)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Ralph Steiner American, 1899-1986 Ralph Steiner (born in Cleveland) was a modernist photographer and filmmaker known for his clear, sharply focused images of everyday America. Having developed an early interest in photography, Steiner spent the year following graduation from Dartmouth College studying at the Clarence H. White School of Photography in New York (1921-22). He worked as a plate engraver at the Manhattan Photogravure Company, then undertook a career as a magazine and advertising photographer. Deeply impressed by the technical quality of Paul Strand's pictures, Steiner spent the summer and early fall of 1929 improving his own technical skills. That same year he also began experimenting with filmmaking, producing the avant-garde film H2O. During the 1930s he continued to make films, producing Surf and Seaweed, Mechanical Principles, and Pie in the Sky. In 1935 Steiner joined Strand as a cameraman on Pare Lorentz's documentary film, The Plow that Broke the Plains, and several years later collaborated with photographer Willard Van Dyke on The City, a documentary shown at the 1939 New York World's Fair. In the early 1940s Steiner moved to Hollywood, where he worked for mgm and rko. Upon his return to New York later in the decade, he resumed his career as a commercial photographer. During the 1960s he was able to spend more time doing his own work, producing both photographs and films. His autobiography, A Point of View (1978), was followed by a book of his cloud photographs, In Pursuit of Clouds (1985). M.M.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1899",
"death_year": "1986",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1991-12-16T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1922,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1922, printed 1980",
"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": "2026-03-26 23:59:31.543000"
}
}