{
"data": {
"id": 163769,
"accession_number": "2005.181",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Go Down Death, 1934. Aaron Douglas (American, 1899\u20131979). Oil on Masonite; framed: 124.5 x 94 x 3.8 cm (49 x 37 x 1 1/2 in.); unframed: 121.9 x 91.5 cm (48 x 36 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund and Gift of Prof. and Mrs. David C. Driskell, 2005.181. Art \u00a9 Heirs of Aaron Douglas/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY",
"current_location": "226A American Modern",
"title": "Go Down Death",
"creation_date": "1934",
"creation_date_earliest": 1934,
"creation_date_latest": 1934,
"artists_tags": [
"Black American Artists",
"male"
],
"culture": [
"United States"
],
"technique": "oil on Masonite",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "American Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "American - Painting",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Framed: 124.5 x 94 x 3.8 cm (49 x 37 x 1 1/2 in.); Unframed: 121.9 x 91.5 cm (48 x 36 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 1.245,
"height_inch": 49,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.94,
"width_inch": 37,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"depth": 0.038,
"depth_inch": 1,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.5
},
"unframed": {
"height": 1.219,
"height_inch": 48,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.915,
"width_inch": 36,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "Art \u00a9 Heirs of Aaron Douglas/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY",
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "signed \"A. Douglas\" lower right corner in purple paint",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 215369,
"title": "Aaron Douglas and the Harlem Renaissance",
"description": "Aaron Douglas and the Harlem Renaissance. Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS (organizer) (September 8-December 2, 2007); Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN (January 19-April 13, 2008); National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC (May 9-August 3, 2008); Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, NY (August 30-November 30, 2008).",
"opening_date": "2007-09-08T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 200463,
"title": "The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s",
"description": "The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY (April 7-August 20, 2017); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 30, 2017-January 14, 2018).",
"opening_date": "2017-04-07T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Two Centuries of Black American Art. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (September 30-November 21, 1976); High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA (January 8-February 20, 1977); Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, TX (March 30-May 15, 1977); The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY(June 25-August 21, 1977).",
"opening_date": "1976-09-30T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Hidden Heritage: Afro-American Art, 1800-1950. Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA (September 14-November 10, 1985); Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Bronx, NY (January 14-March 10, 1986); California Afro-American Museum, Los Angeles, CA (April 7-June 2, 1986); Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT (July 4-August 31, 1986); Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC (September 22-November 17, 1986); San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX (December 15, 1986-February 9, 1987); Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH (March 8-May 3, 1987).",
"opening_date": "1985-09-14T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America. Studio Museum in Harlem, Harlem, NY (February 12-August 30, 1987); Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (April 7-June 5, 1988); High Museum of Art, Alanta, GA (June 28-September 4, 1988); Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME (September 24-November 20, 1988); Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, University of Texas, Austin, TX (January 14-February 26, 1989); Virginia Museum of the Fine Arts (March 27-May 21, 1989); Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville, TN (June 17-August 6, 1989); New York State Museum, Albany, NY (August 29-October 29, 1989).",
"opening_date": "1987-02-12T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Narratives of African American Art and Identity: The Davide C. Driskill Collection. The Art Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, MD (October 22- December 19, 1998); African American Museum, Dallas, TX (March 13- June 19, 1999); Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME (July 21- October 17, 1999); The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA (November 20, 1999- February 12, 2000); The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA (June 20- September 10, 2000); Newark Museum, Newark, NJ (October 25, 2000- February 25, 2001); Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH (March 17- May 14, 2001); Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA (July 8- September 30, 2001); Naples Museum of Art, Naples, FL (October 15, 2001- January 13, 2002), FL; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC (April 23-October 25, 2002).",
"opening_date": "1998-10-22T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Collection of the artist",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "until 1977",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Dr. and Mrs. David C. Driskell, Hyattsville, MD",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1977-2005",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "2005-",
"sortorder": 4
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Douglas founded the art department at Fisk University, where he also created many celebrated murals.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "The leading painter of the Harlem Renaissance, Douglas based this painting on an illustration he made for God\u2019s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927), a book by noted author and civil rights advocate James Weldon Johnson. Its subject tells the story of a winged angel of death who races through the heavens on horseback to rescue a woman from a life of suffering.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60480297"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Driskell, David, C. Two Centuries of Black American Art Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 153",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Driskell, David C. Hidden Heritage: Afro-American Art, 1800-1950. San Francisco, Calif: The Association, 1985.",
"page_number": "Cat. no. 50",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Driskell, David C. Hidden Heritage: Afro-American Art, 1800\u20131950. Bellevue Art Museum, Washington: Art Museum Association of America, 1985, second printing 1987.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 41,94",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Campbell, Mary Schmidt. et al., Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America. New York: Abrams, 1987.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 110, 130; Reproduced: color plate 33",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Gips, Terry. Narratives of African American Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection. San Francisco, Calif: Pomegranate, 1998.",
"page_number": "Cat. no. 14",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Holland, Juanita Marie. Narratives of African American Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection. San Francisco: Pomegranate, 1998.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: frontispiece, p. 81, n. 14; Mentioned: p. 81, 183",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "McAleer,Bernard. \u201cAfter Hours: An Inspiring Heritage.\u201d The Network Journal 8, no. 4 (January 31, 2001)",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 34",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Litt, Steven. \"Museum buys work by important black painter.\" The Plain Dealer, December 22, 2005.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. F-1, F-3; Reproduced: p. F-3",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "\"Mark Cole.\" Cleveland Art 46, no. 3 (March 2006)",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 2, 10",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Earle, Susan, ed. Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 172, n. 73",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Adams, Henry. What's American about American art?: a gallery tour in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: fig. 15, p. 13",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cole, Mark. \"Jacob Lawrence's Fulton and Nostrand.\" Cleveland Art 48 (February 2008).",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 7; Mentioned: p. 7",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Gordon, Margery. \"Eyes on the Prizes.\" Art & Auction 31 (February 2008)",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 117; Mentioned: p. 117",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Cole, Mark, \"Jacob Lawrence's Fulton and Nostrand\", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 48 no. 2, February 2008",
"page_number": "Mentioned & reproduced: p. 7",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2008-02/page/6"
},
{
"citation": "McIntyre, Dianna. \"A Personal Favorite.\" Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 51, no. 2 (March/April 2011): 8.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 8; Reproduced: p. 8",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2011-02/page/8/mode/2up"
},
{
"citation": "Cole, Mark. African American Art, The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 16",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Anderson, Nancy. \u201cAaron Douglas/The Judgment Day/1939.\u201d In American Paintings, 1900\u20131945, NGA Online Editions.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 7",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Smith, Roberta. \"A Show's Secret Star: Art Deco steps out incognito with plenty of company in a design exhibition.\" The New York Times, April 7, 2017.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. C19",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2005.181",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "John L. Severance Fund and Gift of Prof. and Mrs. David C. Driskell",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": "Dr. Robert B. Benyo Trust Gallery",
"athena_id": 163769,
"creators": [
{
"id": 7876,
"description": "Aaron Douglas (American, 1899\u20131979)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1899",
"death_year": "1979",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2005-12-05T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1934,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1934",
"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": "2026-09-24 21:31:02.447000"
}
}