{
    "data": {
        "id": 371207,
        "accession_number": "1994.159",
        "share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
        "tombstone": "Untitled (Four Etchings), 1992. Glenn Ligon (American, b. 1960), Max Protech, Inc.. Set of four soft-ground etchings, aquatint, spit bite, and sugarlift on Fabriano; sheet: 64 x 44 cm (25 3/16 x 17 5/16 in.); platemark: 60 x 40.2 cm (23 5/8 x 15 13/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1994.159",
        "current_location": null,
        "title": "Untitled (Four Etchings)",
        "creation_date": "1992",
        "creation_date_earliest": 1992,
        "creation_date_latest": 1992,
        "artists_tags": [
            "LGBTQ+ (after 1900)",
            "male",
            "Black American Artists"
        ],
        "culture": [
            "America"
        ],
        "technique": "Set of four soft-ground etchings, aquatint, spit bite, and sugarlift on Fabriano",
        "support_materials": [
            {
                "description": "Rives BFK white wove, mould made paper",
                "watermarks": []
            }
        ],
        "department": "Prints",
        "collection": "PR - Etching",
        "type": "Print",
        "measurements": "Sheet: 64 x 44 cm (25 3/16 x 17 5/16 in.); Platemark: 60 x 40.2 cm (23 5/8 x 15 13/16 in.)",
        "dimensions": {
            "sheet": {
                "height": 0.64,
                "height_inch": 25,
                "height_inch_fraction": 0.1875,
                "width": 0.44,
                "width_inch": 17,
                "width_inch_fraction": 0.3125
            },
            "platemark": {
                "height": 0.6,
                "height_inch": 23,
                "height_inch_fraction": 0.625,
                "width": 0.402,
                "width_inch": 15,
                "width_inch_fraction": 0.8125
            }
        },
        "state_of_the_work": null,
        "edition_of_the_work": "45 plus 10 APs",
        "copyright": null,
        "inscriptions": [
            {
                "inscription": "lower left, in pencil: \"32/45\"; lower right, in pencil: \"Glenn Ligon \u201892\"\r\n",
                "inscription_translation": null,
                "inscription_remark": null,
                "sortorder": null
            }
        ],
        "exhibitions": {
            "current": [
                {
                    "id": 312384,
                    "title": "Who RU2 Day: Mass Media and the Fine Art Print",
                    "description": "<i>Who RU2 Day: Mass Media and the Fine Art Print</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 18, 2018-March 24, 2019).",
                    "opening_date": "2018-11-18T05:00:00"
                }
            ],
            "legacy": [
                {
                    "description": "Main Gallery Rotation (gallery 229): April 13, 2009 - September 11, 2009.",
                    "opening_date": "2009-04-13T00:00:00"
                },
                {
                    "description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art (1/26/2014 - 5/18/2014); \"Our Stories: African American Prints and Drawings\"",
                    "opening_date": "2014-01-26T00:00:00"
                }
            ]
        },
        "provenance": [],
        "find_spot": null,
        "related_works": [],
        "former_accession_numbers": [],
        "did_you_know": null,
        "early_education_description": null,
        "artlens_description": null,
        "description": "In this suite of four etchings, Glenn Ligon appropriated passages from the published works of two renowned black authors and printed them in black and white reminiscent of a letterpress poster to draw attention to racism in America. The two etchings printed in black on white paper, which are progressively more difficult to read as the text descends, repeat quotes from Zora Neale Hurston's 1928 essay \"How It Feels to Be Colored Me.\" Hurston describes whiteness as being used as a category by which to assess blackness. Ligon explains, \"the prints play with the notion of becoming 'colored'\" and how \"one is not born black; 'blackness' is a social construction.\" The two other prints, printed in black on black to render them intentionally hard to decipher, repeat the first lines of Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel <em>Invisible Man</em>. Here, Ligon builds upon Ellison's use of the metaphor of invisibility to describe the position of blacks in America\u2014as present and real yet still often unseen due to persistent structural racism.",
        "external_resources": {
            "wikidata": [
                "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60781061"
            ],
            "internet_archive": []
        },
        "citations": [],
        "url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1994.159",
        "images": {},
        "alternate_images": [],
        "creditline": "John L. Severance Fund",
        "image_credit": null,
        "sketchfab_id": null,
        "sketchfab_url": null,
        "gallery_donor_text": null,
        "athena_id": 371207,
        "creators": [
            {
                "id": 22227,
                "description": "Glenn Ligon (American, b. 1960)",
                "extent": null,
                "qualifier": null,
                "role": "artist",
                "biography": null,
                "name_in_original_language": null,
                "birth_year": "1960",
                "use_in_caption": true,
                "include_extent": false,
                "weight": 1
            },
            {
                "id": 68633,
                "description": "Max Protech, Inc.",
                "extent": null,
                "qualifier": null,
                "role": "published by",
                "biography": null,
                "name_in_original_language": null,
                "use_in_caption": true,
                "include_extent": false,
                "weight": 2
            }
        ],
        "legal_status": "accessioned",
        "accession_date": "1994-09-07T00:00:00",
        "sortable_date": 1992,
        "date_added_to_oa": null,
        "date_text": "1992",
        "collapse_artists": true,
        "on_loan": false,
        "recently_acquired": false,
        "record_type": "cover",
        "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 06:54:04.892000"
    }
}