Admired Art Deco masterpiece by Rose Iron Works acquired by Cleveland Museum of Art

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A 1930 Art Deco masterpiece made in Cleveland by Rose Iron works has entered the permanent collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art after having been prominently displayed there in recent years.

The museum announced that its latest round of acquisitions includes designer Paul Fehér’s “Muse with Violin Screen,” a monumental wrought iron and brass screen depicting a nude female violinist modeled after Josephine Baker, the American-expatriate French entertainer, World War II Resistance agent and civil rights advocate.

The violinist is surrounded by cascades of Viennese-inspired decorative geometric motifs including concentric arcs and stylized foliage.

Long considered a classic expression of Cleveland’s brilliance as a center of design and production of decorative arts items, the screen was sold to the museum for an undisclosed price by Rose Iron Works Collections, LLC.

Once displayed in Severance Hall, the screen has been on view at the museum in recent years, including in the 2017 exhibition, “The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s.’’ The screen was featured on the cover of the exhibition’s catalogue.

Other objects in the latest round of acquisitions include a 17th-century Japanese handscroll depicting Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers; a modernist embroidery by Marguerite Zorach; and 10 contemporary videos.

In addition to the Rose Iron Works screen, the museum has acquired other works by the foundry, including ” Console and Mirror,’’ designed by Fehér and produced by the foundry in 1931, and a railing from the Cleveland Play House, designed by Martin Rose, founder of Rose Iron Works.

The Japanese, ink-painted scroll, “Poems and Pictures of the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers,’’ made by the artist Unkoku Tōgan (1547–1618) draws on a centuries-old theme of Chinese painting and literature

The work adds to 14 works in the museum’s collection of Asian art based on the same theme, dating from the 15th- to the 18th-century by artists from Japan and Korea.

The museum called Zorach’s large-scale wool embroidery on silk a “masterpiece of modernism’’ that reinforces its commitment to collecting works by diverse artists.

Entitled “The Family (In Memory of a Summer in the White Mountains,’’ the work celebrates domestic life in harmony with nature, depicting Zorach and her husband, William—a sculptor who was raised in Cleveland and studied at the Cleveland School (now the Cleveland Institute of Art)—and their 2-year-old son, Tessim.

Their nude figures surround an evergreen tree within a circle bordered with an inscription recounting details of the embroidery’s inspiration and creation. Stylized animals appear in the corners of the work.

The museum’s news release said that Zorach’s embroidered works are among the finest contributions to the Modern Embroidery Movement, an aspect of early American modernism that has received increasing scholarly attention in recent decades.

The embroidery is the first example of the movement to enter the museum’s collection. It will be installed in the museum’s early American modern gallery in the fall of 2021.

The film and video works acquired by the museum include “Anima, Silueta de Cohetes (Firework Piece),” a 1976 video by Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta.

The 2.5-minute work depicts the burning silhouette of a monumental figure outlined by fireworks until it flames out, a moment the museum describes as “a poetic metaphor for the passage of time.”

Other videos acquired by the museum include works from the 1960s and 70s by American artists Eleanor Antin, Dara Birnbaum, Joan Jonas, Martha Rosler, Korean artist Nam June Paik and Swiss artist Pipolotti Rist. Other videos depict performances of artists Bruce Nauman and Vito Acconci, and Robert Smithson’s iconic earth work, “Spiral Jetty.”

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