Cleveland Museum of Art
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. It has a permanent collection of more than 43,000 works of art. General admission to the permanent galleries is free to the public, with admission fees charged for certain special exhibitions. In June 2008, the museum reopened 19 of its permanent galleries located in the museum's historic 1916 building, upon completion of a significant building renovation that had closed the galleries since 2005. In June 2009, the newly constructed East Wing, which houses elements of the Impressionist, Contemporary, and Modern art collections (including the famed blue-period Picasso work La Vie), reopened to the public.
Holdings
The Cleveland Museum of Art divides its collections into 15 departments including Chinese Art, Modern European Art, African Art, Drawings, Prints, European Painting & Sculpture, Textiles & Islamic Art, American Painting & Sculpture, Greek & Roman Art, Contemporary Art, Medieval Art, Decorative Art & Design, Art of the Ancient Americas and Oceania, Photography and Contemporary Art. Artists represented by significant works include Caravaggio, El Greco, Poussin, Rubens, Frans Hals, Gerard David, Goya, J.M.W. Turner, Dalí, Matisse, Renoir, Gauguin, Church, Cole, Corot, Eakins, Monet, van Gogh, Picasso, Bellows. The Museum has been active recently in acquiring later 20th-century art, having added important works by Warhol, Pollock, Christo, Kiefer, Richter, Clemente, Kossoff, Close, Mangold, Tansey and LeWitt, among others.
Highlights
The museum's large cast of Rodin's The Thinker has a unique but troubled history. Partially destroyed in a bombing in 1970 by The Weathermen, the statue was left unrestored due to the close involvement of the artist in its original casting. The damaged statue is now considered to be interesting commentary on The Thinker which was originally paired with the artist's The Gates of Hell.
In June 2004, the museum acquired an ancient bronze sculpture of Apollo Sauroktonos, believed to be an original work by Praxiteles of Athens. Because the work has a contested provenance, the museum continues to study the dating and attribution of the sculpture.
The museum is especially strong in the field of Asian art, possessing one of the best collections in the U.S.
Works in the collection
