{
    "data": {
        "id": 159841,
        "accession_number": "1997.152",
        "share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
        "tombstone": "Soft Borders, 1997. Mark Tansey (American, 1949-). Oil on canvas; framed: 269.1 x 217.2 x 5.8 cm (105 15/16 x 85 1/2 x 2 5/16 in.); unframed: 265.7 x 214 cm (104 5/8 x 84 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dorothea Wright Hamilton Fund, 1997.152. \u00a9 Mark Tansey",
        "current_location": null,
        "title": "Soft Borders",
        "creation_date": "1997",
        "creation_date_earliest": 1997,
        "creation_date_latest": 1997,
        "artists_tags": [
            "male"
        ],
        "culture": [
            "America"
        ],
        "technique": "oil on canvas",
        "support_materials": [],
        "department": "Contemporary Art",
        "collection": "CONTEMP - Painting",
        "type": "Painting",
        "measurements": "Framed: 269.1 x 217.2 x 5.8 cm (105 15/16 x 85 1/2 x 2 5/16 in.); Unframed: 265.7 x 214 cm (104 5/8 x 84 1/4 in.)",
        "dimensions": {
            "framed": {
                "height": 2.691,
                "height_inch": 105,
                "height_inch_fraction": 0.9375,
                "width": 2.172,
                "width_inch": 85,
                "width_inch_fraction": 0.5,
                "depth": 0.058,
                "depth_inch": 2,
                "depth_inch_fraction": 0.3125
            },
            "unframed": {
                "height": 2.657,
                "height_inch": 104,
                "height_inch_fraction": 0.625,
                "width": 2.14,
                "width_inch": 84,
                "width_inch_fraction": 0.25
            }
        },
        "state_of_the_work": null,
        "edition_of_the_work": null,
        "copyright": "\u00a9 Mark Tansey",
        "inscriptions": [
            {
                "inscription": "\"Tansey\" scratched into painting at \"bottom\" edge. On verso is a diagram numbering the various views and orientations.",
                "inscription_translation": null,
                "inscription_remark": null,
                "sortorder": null
            }
        ],
        "exhibitions": {
            "current": [
                {
                    "id": 290548,
                    "title": "Once Upon a Time... The Western: A New Frontier in Art and Film",
                    "description": "<i>Once Upon a Time... The Western: A New Frontier in Art and Film</i>. Montr\u00e9al Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (organizer) (October 14, 2017-February 4, 2018).",
                    "opening_date": "2017-10-14T04:00:00"
                }
            ],
            "legacy": [
                {
                    "description": "Montr\u00e9al Museum of Fine Arts, Qu\u00e9bec,Canada (10/14/2017 \u2013 2/4/2018): \"Once Upon a Time... The Western: A New Frontier in Art and Film\"",
                    "opening_date": "2017-10-14T00:00:00"
                }
            ]
        },
        "provenance": [],
        "find_spot": null,
        "related_works": [],
        "former_accession_numbers": [],
        "did_you_know": null,
        "early_education_description": null,
        "artlens_description": null,
        "description": "With wit and irony, this painting reveals Mark Tansey\u2019s fascination with the nature of time, space, and painting itself. Against a mountain backdrop he painted four interrelated scenes: a small tribe of native Americans, an expedition of 19th-century surveyors and photographers, a group of tourists taking photographs and home movies, and a toxic waste-removal crew in protective clothing. Each scene is depicted from a different perspective. Shown here in the orientation preferred by the artist, the canvas can be hung in any of four positions. Tansey describes <em>Soft Borders</em> as a \u201cshort history of the West from four different points of view.\u201d The artist makes many preliminary drawings and collages before producing a final composition. Once the planning is finished, the time actually spent painting is brief\u2014several days to several months. Tansey\u2019s palette is restricted to one color applied over a gessoed (plastered) canvas, manipulating the paint with brushes and scraping tools, removing pigment until the white of the ground is visible, much like daylight shining through fog.",
        "external_resources": {
            "wikidata": [
                "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60477446"
            ],
            "internet_archive": []
        },
        "citations": [
            {
                "citation": null,
                "page_number": null,
                "url": null
            },
            {
                "citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, \u201cMajor African Sculpture, Recent Mark Tansey Painting, and Other Works of Art Enter CMA Collection,\u201d September 16, 1997, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
                "page_number": null,
                "url": "https://archive.org/details/cmapr4152"
            },
            {
                "citation": "Hinson, Tom E., \"Mark Tansey\", Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine</em>. Vol. 38 no. 03, March 1998",
                "page_number": "Mentioned & reproduced: p. 4-5",
                "url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM1998-03/page/n3"
            }
        ],
        "url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1997.152",
        "images": {},
        "alternate_images": [],
        "creditline": "Dorothea Wright Hamilton Fund",
        "image_credit": null,
        "sketchfab_id": null,
        "sketchfab_url": null,
        "gallery_donor_text": null,
        "athena_id": 159841,
        "creators": [
            {
                "id": 14495,
                "description": "Mark Tansey (American, 1949-)",
                "extent": null,
                "qualifier": null,
                "role": "artist",
                "biography": null,
                "name_in_original_language": null,
                "birth_year": "1949",
                "use_in_caption": true,
                "include_extent": false,
                "weight": 1
            }
        ],
        "legal_status": "accessioned",
        "accession_date": "1997-09-15T00:00:00",
        "sortable_date": 1997,
        "date_added_to_oa": null,
        "date_text": "1997",
        "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 06:52:06.349000"
    }
}