id:			394818
accession number:	2020.273
share license status:	Copyrighted
url:			https://clevelandart.org/art/2020.273
updated:		2023-08-24 01:39:34.593000

Atomic Mystic Cosmic 16, 2017. Polly Apfelbaum (American, b. 1955). Color woodblock monoprint; image: 81.7 x 53.5 cm (32 3/16 x 21 1/16 in.); sheet: 92.5 x 63.8 cm (36 7/16 x 25 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Margaret and Peter Dobbins 2020.273 ©  Polly Apfelbaum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

title:				Atomic Mystic Cosmic 16
title in original language:	
series:				
series in original language:	
creation date:			2017
creation date earliest:		2017
creation date latest:		2017
current location:		
creditline:			Gift of Margaret and Peter Dobbins
copyright:			©  Polly Apfelbaum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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culture:	America
technique:	Color woodblock monoprint
department:	Prints
collection:	PR - Woodblock
type:		Print
find spot:	
catalogue raisonne: 

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CREATORS

* Polly Apfelbaum (American, b. 1955)  - artist

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measurements: Image: 81.7 x 53.5 cm (32 3/16 x 21 1/16 in.); Sheet: 92.5 x 63.8 cm (36 7/16 x 25 1/8 in.)
state of the work:	
edition of the work: 	

support materials:


inscriptions:

	inscription:	Initialed and dated in graphite LR in image: PA17
	translation:	
	remark:		

	inscription:	Durham Press blindstamp LL
	translation:	
	remark:		

	inscription:	Verso, inscribed in graphite : 16
	translation:	
	remark:		

	inscription:	Verso, stamped in black ink : © 2017 Polly Apfelbaum Durham Press, Inc
	translation:	
	remark:		

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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

	title:		Women in Print: Recent Acquisitions
	opening date:   2022-01-16T05:00:00
	<i>Women in Print: Recent Acquisitions</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 16-June 19, 2022).

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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS

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PROVENANCE

	(Durham Press, Durham, PA)
	date: 
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


	The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
	date: December 7, 2020
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


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fun fact:
The “rainbow roll” printing technique is responsible for the gradient effect of many of the colors seen on this print.

digital description:
Polly Apfelbaum’s work builds upon the American abstract tradition of color field, pop, and abstract expressionist painting, while rejecting what she calls the “aggressive masculinity” of these movements. <em>Atomic Mystic Cosmic 16 </em>was stimulated by a year Apfelbaum spent in Italy, when she became fascinated with drapery and colored fabrics depicted in Renaissance and Baroque paintings, as well as the decorative inlay of medieval mosaic floors. For the color, she employed the “rainbow roll” technique, in which multiple colors are partially mixed to achieve a continuous gradient effect. The effect is one of dazzling color and pattern, while also creating spatial relationships that complicate the composition’s hard-edged geometry.

wall description:
Polly Apfelbaum combines abstraction with visual references to crafts that historically have carried feminine associations, such as embroidery. The series to which this print belongs involved placing and rearranging hundreds of wooden blocks in a frame. Apfelbaum has long worked with this process, which allows her to experiment with combinations of color and shape, drawing from influences as varied as mosaic floor tiles and elaborately patterned fabrics. She inked many of the individual blocks using a rainbow roll—a technique seen in prints ranging from Japanese woodcuts to inexpensive posters—contributing a gradated effect that here suggests movement and the illusion of three-dimensional space.
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RELATED WORKS

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CITATIONS

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