{
"data": {
"id": 156616,
"accession_number": "1992.316",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Acropolis, 1972, printed 1975. Kenneth Josephson (American, 1932-). Gelatin silver print; image: 15.2 x 22.8 cm (6 x 9 in.); matted: 35.6 x 45.7 cm (14 x 18 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Russ Anderson, 1992.316",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Acropolis",
"creation_date": "1972, printed 1975",
"creation_date_earliest": 1972,
"creation_date_latest": 1972,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "gelatin silver print",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Photography",
"collection": "PH - American 1951-Present",
"type": "Photograph",
"measurements": "Image: 15.2 x 22.8 cm (6 x 9 in.); Matted: 35.6 x 45.7 cm (14 x 18 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"image": {
"height": 0.152,
"height_inch": 6,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.228,
"width_inch": 9,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
},
"matted": {
"height": 0.356,
"height_inch": 14,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.457,
"width_inch": 18,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Written in pencil on recto of mount: \"Kenneth Josephson [signed]\"",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 383281,
"title": "Stories from Storage",
"description": "Stories from Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).",
"opening_date": "2021-02-06T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Russ Anderson, Perspective Fine Art, Soquel, CA)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "?-1993",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "February 17, 1993",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "The oldest extant photograph of the Acropolis was taken in 1842.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Almost since its discovery in 1839, photography has been an essential part of travel. A breakthrough occurred in 1888 with the arrival of the Kodak, the first camera so simple to operate that everyone could document their own adventures. In Kenneth Josephson\u2019s 1972 image of sailors photographing the Erechtheion, an ancient Greek temple on the Acropolis in Athens, he included another option. In those days before cell phones, some tourist attractions were served by a local professional who would shoot visitors in front of the famous monument and send them the prints later.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79946206"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Turner, Evan H. \u201cThe Year in Review for 1992.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38\u201379.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 68",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25161388"
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 205",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1992.316",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of Russ Anderson",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 156616,
"creators": [
{
"id": 177,
"description": "Kenneth Josephson (American, 1932-)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Kenneth Josephson American, 1932-\r\n\r\nKenneth Bradley Josephson's photographs are about the medium itself: its illusionistic capabilities, inherent technical properties, and shifting meanings depending on context. As a student of Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan in Chicago at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, Josephson learned the significance of abstraction and how to juxtapose and manipulate forms as tools for his clever, often surreal, tableaux. In his works he examines how an object and a photograph of that object relate, with humor and a reverence for the element of chance. In so doing, he calls attention to the two-dimensionality of the medium as a way to question our understanding of reality as it is represented photographically. His related series include Marks and Evidences of Events and Images within Images (begun 1963), History of Photography (begun 1970), and Archaeological Images (begun 1975).\r\n\tBorn in Detroit, Josephson bought his first camera in 1944. He attended the Rochester Institute of Technology (1951-53), earning a certificate before being drafted into the armed forces in 1953. He returned to rit and earned his B.F.A. in 1957. When his wife died in 1958, Josephson moved to Chicago to attend iit (M.S., 1960), then began teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1963 he was a founding member of the Society for Photographic Education and, the following year, his work was included in The Photographer's Eye, a group exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has taught as an exchange teacher at the Konstfackskolan, Stockholm (1966-67), the University of Hawaii, Honolulu (1967-68), the Rhode Island School of Design (1973), and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (1974). In 1975 Josephson traveled in India for three months, teaching upon his return at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. He has since taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, and continued at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.\r\n\tJosephson has had numerous international one-person exhibitions, including a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1983), and received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1972) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1975, 1979). His publications include The Bread Book (1973), Portfolio: Kenneth Josephson (1975), and Kenneth Josephson, a postcard portfolio (1980). Josephson lives in Chicago. A.W.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1932",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1993-02-17T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1972,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1972, printed 1975",
"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 06:51:42.571000"
}
}