{
"data": {
"id": 170082,
"accession_number": "2012.30",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Self-Portrait with Five Muses, c. 1880. Henry Church (American, 1836\u20131908). Oil on paper mounted to board; unframed: 73.3 x 59.7 cm (28 7/8 x 23 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Delia E. Holden Fund, 2012.30",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Self-Portrait with Five Muses",
"creation_date": "c. 1880",
"creation_date_earliest": 1875,
"creation_date_latest": 1885,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America, Ohio, Cleveland"
],
"technique": "oil on paper mounted to board",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "American Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "American - Cleveland School",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Unframed: 73.3 x 59.7 cm (28 7/8 x 23 1/2 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"unframed": {
"height": 0.733,
"height_inch": 28,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.875,
"width": 0.597,
"width_inch": 23,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Inscribed lower right: H. Church. Ptr",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 311873,
"title": "Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946",
"description": "Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 19-July 21, 1996).",
"opening_date": "1996-05-19T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 292699,
"title": "Artlens Exhibition 2017",
"description": "Artlens Exhibition 2017. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 24, 2017-May 29, 2019).",
"opening_date": "2017-06-24T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 380548,
"title": "Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art",
"description": "Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art. The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH (June 12-September 5, 2021); Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY (October 7, 2021-January 2, 2022); Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (organizer) (February 19-May 15, 2022).",
"opening_date": "2021-06-12T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "\"They Taught Themselves: American Primitive Painters of the 20th Century,\" Marie Harriman Gallery, New York, February 9-March 7, 1942",
"opening_date": "1942-02-09T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "\"Masterpieces of American Primitive Painting,\" Museum of American Folk Art, New York, 1974-1975 [unconfirmed]",
"opening_date": "1974-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "\"American Folk Painters of Three Centuries,\" Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, February 26-May 13, 1980",
"opening_date": "1980-02-26T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "\"\u2026seeds of the future,\" CompassRose Gallery, Chicago, February 14-March 25, 1989",
"opening_date": "1989-02-14T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "\"Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology,\" Philadelphia Museum of Art, March 10-May 17, 1998; High Museum of Art, July 14-September 20, 1998; Amon Carter Museum and Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, October 31, 1998-January 24, 1999; Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, NY, February 20-April 18, 1999; Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus, May 15-August 15, 1999; Museum of American Folk Art, New York, September 19-December 11, 1999",
"opening_date": "1998-03-10T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "The artist; Jessie Church Sargent (the artist's daughter), Chagrin Falls, Ohio;",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
},
{
"description": "Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Rosenberg, New York (1937); Private Collection by descent; [Washburn Gallery, New York, (2012)]",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Church \"spoke\" at his funeral via an Edison phonograph recording he made for the occasion.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Lifelong Chagrin Falls resident Church is considered one of the great self-taught artists of 19th-century America. A painter, sculptor, and musician by passion, he offered his appearance and enthusiasms in this highly imaginative self-portrait, surrounding himself with a squadron of miniature winged muses. These figures represent not only the traditional arts of painting, sculpture, and music, but also Church's profession of blacksmithing (identified as a crowned figure holding a hammer and anvil). A savvy entrepreneur, Church launched the first commercial art gallery in northeast Ohio: Church's Art Museum, at Geauga Lake, in 1888. Its inventory consisted entirely of his own work.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60480947"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-2012.30-self-portrait-with-f"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Rosenberg, Sam. \"Henry Church of Chagrin.\" In They Taught Themselves; American Primitive Painters of the 20th Century, edited by Sidney Janis. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1965.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp.102, 104-106; Reproduced: p.105",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Janis, Sidney. They Taught Themselves; American Primitive Painters of the 20th Century. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1965.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp.102, 104-106; Reproduced: p.105",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Rosenberg, Sam. \"Henry Church: 1836-1908.\" In American Folk Painters of Three Centuries, edited by Jean Lipman and Tom Armstrong. New York, NY: Hudson Hills Press, 1980.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp.176, 178-180; Reproduced: p.181",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Christian, Barbara. \"Henry Church finds place in Whitney's folk art.\" (Source unrecorded, date uncertain; probably July-Dec. 1980).",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced (unpaginated)",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Theis, Jana M. \"Chagrin Falls' Henry Church: The artist who had the last word.\" Western Reserve Magazine 2, no.1 (November/December 1983).",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p.34",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Babinsky, Jane E., and Miriam Church Stem. The Life and Work of Henry Church, Jr. Chagrin Falls, OH: Privately Printed 1987.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p.33; Reproduced: p.34 (unpaginated)",
"url": "chagrinhistorical.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/The-Life-and-Work-of-Henry-Church-Jr.pdf"
},
{
"citation": "Robinson, William H., et. al. Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p.60; Mentioned: p.61, 245",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Ohio Historical Society, and Ohio History Connection. Timeline: A Publication of the Ohio Historical Society 21, No.1 (January/February 2004). Columbus, OH: The Ohio Historical Society, 2004.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp.7-8; Reproduced: Back Cover",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Artistic Excellence: Acquisitions 2012-14. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p.49",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 57 (May/June 2017). Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2017.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p.13",
"url": "clevelandart.org/sites/default/files/May-June_2017_magazine_web.pdf"
},
{
"citation": "Millsom Studer, Carol, and Victor Studer. \"Henry Church Jr.\" In Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology, edited by Elsa Weiner Longhauser and Harald Szeemann. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1998.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp.45, 223; Reproduced: p.47",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cozzolino, Robert, ed. Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art, exh. cat. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2021).",
"page_number": "Reproduced p. 232",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2012.30",
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"date_created": "2012-06-19T13:24:12",
"annotation": ""
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],
"creditline": "Delia E. Holden Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 170082,
"creators": [
{
"id": 10505,
"description": "Henry Church (American, 1836\u20131908)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Henry Church is the best known self-trained artist to have worked in the Cleveland area. Son of a blacksmith and a teacher who moved from Massachusetts to Chagrin Falls in 1834, Church began work in his father\u2019 s shop at age 13. He showed an early love of art, reputedly using charcoal from the shop to practice drawing. Moving to Parkman, Ohio, upon his marriage in 1859, Church returned to Chagrin Falls by 1861 and built a smithy. A pacifist, he bought his way out of military service in the Civil War. After his father\u2019s death in November 1878, Church opened an art studio above his shop, dedicating himself to painting and, after 1885, to sculpture. Before 1885 he had only carved stone surreptitiously, apparently hoping that, upon discovery, his first monumental work (The Rape of the Indian Tribes by the White Man, also known as Squaw Rock, in what is now South Chagrin Reservation, Cleveland Metroparks) would be interpreted as a divine creation. Although it has been claimed that Church retired as a blacksmith at age 50 in 1886, according to the William\u2019s Ohio State Directory, he was still practicing that trade in 1888\u201389. In 1888 he opened the short-lived Church\u2019s Art Museum at Geauga Lake, Ohio, a popular picnic area; around the same time he rented out his blacksmith shop. Church\u2019s productivity declined at the turn of the century as the physical strain of working stone taxed his health. An avid spiritualist, he read the periodical Banner Light. Taking advantage of early phonograph technology, he recorded his own funeral speech, an oration that concluded with the line \u201cGood-bye at present.\u201d
\"Transformations in Cleveland Art\" (CMA, 1996), p. 225",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1836",
"death_year": "1908",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2012-06-04T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1875,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1880",
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"on_loan": false,
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"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": "2026-06-12 11:24:19.553000"
}
}