id:			161436
accession number:	2000.120.3
share license status:	Copyrighted
url:			https://clevelandart.org/art/2000.120.3
updated:		2023-03-15 15:46:38.829000

Play with Heads: Play with Heads, 1923. Oskar Schlemmer (German, 1888–1943), Utopia-Verlag, Weimar, November 1923. Color lithograph printed in brown; sheet: 43 x 29 cm (16 15/16 x 11 7/16 in.); image: 25.1 x 20.1 cm (9 7/8 x 7 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 2000.120.3

title:				Play with Heads
title in original language:	
series:				Play with Heads
series in original language:	
creation date:			1923
creation date earliest:		1923
creation date latest:		1923
current location:		
creditline:			John L. Severance Fund
copyright:			

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culture:	Germany, 20th century
technique:	color lithograph printed in brown
department:	Prints
collection:	PR - Lithograph
type:		Portfolio
find spot:	
catalogue raisonne: Grohmann GL 12, von Maur 502

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CREATORS

* Oskar Schlemmer (German, 1888–1943)  - artist

* Utopia-Verlag, Weimar, November 1923  - published by

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measurements: Sheet: 43 x 29 cm (16 15/16 x 11 7/16 in.); Image: 25.1 x 20.1 cm (9 7/8 x 7 15/16 in.)
state of the work:	
edition of the work: 	

support materials:

	description:	Laid paper with watermark and countermark
	watermarks:	

inscriptions:

	inscription:	signed in graphite, lower right: Oskar Schlemmer
	translation:	
	remark:		

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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS

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PROVENANCE

	Private Collection, East Germany; [Jürgen Holstein, Berlin]; [Kornfield sale, 1993, Bern, Switzerland]; [Alice Adam, Chicago]
	date: 
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


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fun fact:


digital description:


wall description:
Variations on a theme, this rare set of prints explores diverse arrangements of three heads. Each image uses a single color and was printed in a spatter technique first used in the 19th century by French lithographers like Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. By drawing a blade across a toothbrush saturated with lithographic ink, the ink is spattered onto the lithographic stone in a random pattern of variously sized dots. By controlling the fine spray of droplets, transparent forms and a wide tonal range can be obtained. Unlike his contemporaries, El Lissitzky, Lázló Moholy-Nagy, and Kurt Schwitters, whose work focused only on abstraction, Schlemmer was intensely interested in the human form. He once said, however, that he was "interested in creating human types, not portraits." Thus he did not portray specific individuals, but prototypes for a purified, timeless image of humanity.
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RELATED WORKS

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CITATIONS

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IMAGES