The White Dam
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Unable to afford tuition, Akron-based Gleitsmann befriended faculty and students at the Cleveland School (now Institute) of Art where eventually he was invited to take classes without registering. The White Dam, a fantastical image of an industrial complex that dwarfs two nude workers, earned his greatest success when it was featured in the New York World’s Fair of 1939. Gleitsmann’s unsettling vision of industry contrasts with the favorable attitudes typically adopted by artists of a previous generation. Gleitsmann gave up painting entirely in 1954, claiming he “had nothing to say anymore.”
The museum’s own description, in English. Licence: CC0
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Details
- Maker
- Raphael Gleitsmann (American, 1910–1995)
- Date
- 1939
- Medium
- oil on Masonite
- Dimensions
- Framed: 103.5 x 116 x 5 cm (40 3/4 x 45 11/16 x 1 15/16 in.); Unframed: 97.8 x 112.7 cm (38 1/2 x 44 3/8 in.)
- Place of origin
- United States
- Held by
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland · On view · 228B Cleveland Artists
- Credit line
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund