{
"data": {
"id": 163645,
"accession_number": "2005.144",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "White and Steel Polars, 1945. Theodore Roszak (American, born Kingdom of Prussia [now Poland], 1907\u20131981). Painted wood, steel, iron, and Plexiglas; overall: 271.8 x 40.6 x 40.6 cm (107 x 16 x 16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, 2005.144. \u00a9 Estate of Theodore Roszak / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY",
"current_location": "226B American Modern",
"title": "White and Steel Polars",
"creation_date": "1945",
"creation_date_earliest": 1945,
"creation_date_latest": 1945,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "painted wood, steel, iron, and Plexiglas",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "American Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "American - Sculpture",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 271.8 x 40.6 x 40.6 cm (107 x 16 x 16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 2.718,
"height_inch": 107,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.406,
"width_inch": 16,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"depth": 0.406,
"depth_inch": 16,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 Estate of Theodore Roszak / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY",
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 181802,
"title": "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).",
"opening_date": "2006-06-09T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Theodore Roszak Constructions, 1932-1945. Zabriskie Gallery, New York (October 31\u2013December 2, 1978).",
"opening_date": "1978-10-31T05:00:00Z"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Zabriskie Gallery, New York, NY, sold to Atlantic Richfield Company, Los Angeles)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1978-1979",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "Atlantic Richfield Company, Los Angeles, CA",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1978-1979",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Atlantic Richfield Company, Los Angeles, CA, transfer to ARCO International Gas & Oil, Plano, TX",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1979",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "ARCO International Gas & Oil, Plano, TX to (Hirschl & Adler, New York, NY and Robert Henry Adams Fine Art, Chicago, IL)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1979-2000",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "(Hirschl & Adler, New York, NY and Robert Henry Adams Fine Art, Chicago, IL ) sold to Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "2000-2005",
"sortorder": 5
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "2005-",
"sortorder": 6
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "During the Second World War, Roszak worked for a defense contractor, helping to design aircraft.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "In 1929 Roszak traveled to Prague and met artists interested in making work from industrial materials such as metal and plastic. Inspired by them, he incorporated this approach into his own sculpture for the next few decades.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60780972"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Urdang, Beth. Theodore Roszak: Constructions, 1932-1945. Exhibition pamphlet. New York: Zabriskie Gallery, 1978.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 7",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Zabriskie Gallery advertisement, Art in America 66 (November-December 1978).",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 51",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Kramer, Hilton. \"Art: Roszak Evokes Spirit of Bauhaus,\" New York Times (December 1,1978).",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. C17",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Fichner-Rathus, Lois. Theodore Roszak: Drawings for Constructions, 1931-1945; and Preparatory Sketches, Models and Castings for the MIT Bell Tower, 1955.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 2",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Marter, Joan. \"Theodore Roszak\u2019s Early Constructions: The Machine as Creator of Fantastic and Ideal Forms,\" Arts Magazine 54 (November 1979).",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 110",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Marter, Joan. \"Constructivism in America: The 1930s.\" Arts Magazine 56 (June 1982).",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 79",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Pachner, Joan. \"Theodore Roszak and David Smith: A Question of Balance,\" Arts Magazine 58 (February 1984).",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 103",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Dreishpoon,Douglas. Theodore Roszak: Constructivist Works, 1931-1947: Paintings, Constructions, Drawings, Photograms. Exhibition catalog. New York: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 1992.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 11",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Dreishpoon, Douglas. Theodore J. Roszak (1907-1981): Painting and Sculpture. Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York, 1993.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: fig. 44",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Carberry,Valerie. Selections from the Current Inventory: Paintings, Sculpture, Works on Paper vol. VII. Chicago: Robert Henry Adams Fine Art, Spring 2001).",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 16-17",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 120; Reproduced: p. 69",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Cole, Mark. \"Bi-polar Order\" Cleveland Art 46 (March 2006).",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 8-9; Reproduced: p. 8, cover",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Cole, Mark, \"Bi-polar Order\", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 46 no. 03, March 2006",
"page_number": "Mentioned & reproduced: p. 8",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2006-03/page/8"
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Annual Report (2005-2006).",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 4, 30",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. New York: Scala Art Publishers, 2014.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 60",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2005.144",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": "Hammond Hemmelgarn Family Gallery",
"athena_id": 163645,
"creators": [
{
"id": 14356,
"description": "Theodore Roszak (American, born Kingdom of Prussia [now Poland], 1907\u20131981)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Theodore Roszak American, b. Prussia, 1907-1981 Theodore Roszak was a painter and sculptor whose interest in modern European art and the writings of L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Moholy-Nagy led him to experiment with photograms in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Although born in Posen (now Poznan, Poland), Roszak grew up in Chicago. While in high school he took evening classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, enrolling there as a full-time student in 1925. In 1926 he moved to New York City, where he studied briefly with Charles Hawthorne at the National Academy of Design and then privately with painter George Luks. He also attended classes in logic and philosophy at Columbia University. The next year he returned to Chicago, resuming his studies at the Art Institute. In 1929 Roszak was awarded a fellowship which allowed him to travel in Europe for two years; during this time he became acquainted with constructivism and the philosophy of the Bauhaus. He returned to the United States in 1931, settling in New York City. His work of this period reflected the influence of constructivist aesthetics. By the mid-1930s he was primarily producing wall reliefs and freestanding geometric constructions made from plastic and wood. From about 1937-41 Roszak began making photograms (cameraless photographs) as a way to experiment with light and geometric form. He also incorporated photograms into his teaching curriculum at the Design Laboratory, an experimental school inspired by the principles of the Bauhaus and Moholy-Nagy (funded by the government under the wpa), where he taught from 1938\u201340. During these years he produced hundreds of photograms, which he never exhibited. From 1940-56 Roszak taught at Sarah Lawrence College. During World War II he taught aircraft mechanics and built airplanes at the Brewster Aircraft Corporation in New Jersey. After the war his sculpture, now created out of welded metal, shifted from a concern with geometric shapes to an interest in more organic, expressionistic forms. Roszak continued to be active as a sculptor throughout the 1960s and from 1970\u201372 taught at Columbia University. The Cleveland Museum of Art also owns two sculptures by Roszak. M.M.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1907",
"death_year": "1981",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2005-09-06T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1945,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1945",
"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": [
"White Bi-Polar "
],
"is_highlight": true,
"updated_at": "2026-05-01 06:52:33.528000"
}
}