Special Exhibitions
The Gilded Age
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Special Exhibitions |
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The Gilded Age |
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Cleveland Collects American Art of the Gilded Age During the Gilded Age, Cleveland grew from a village into a major industrial center. At its height, it became the third largest city in the United States, exceeded in size only by New York and Chicago. This Midwestern city became a leader in iron- and steel-making, railroads, shipping, shipbuilding, and the manufacture of paint, hardware, clothing, and other goods. It also evolved into the first center of the modern oil industry, and John D. Rockefeller, the man responsible for this development, amassed the largest fortune created anywhere by anyone during this period. Such wealth gave rise to grand mansions on Euclid Avenue in the late 19th century--the street's magnificence rivaling that of Fifth Avenue in New York--and it also contributed to the cultivation of the arts in Cleveland.The Cleveland Museum of Art was founded through the merger of four great fortunes of this period--those of John Huntington, Horace Kelly, Hinman Hurlbut, and Jeptha Wade. The museum's first purchase was an American painting--John Singleton Copley's portrait Mrs. John Greene (1915.527)--and over the years, the institution has assembled a collection of American art rich in masterpieces. This exhibition gathers together the museum's paintings and sculpture from the latter part of the 19th century, highlighting such great American masters as Winslow Homer, Albert Pinkham Ryder, and Thomas Eakins. To view more of our American art collection when at the museum, please visit galleries 227, 228, 230, 238, and 239. Page 6 of 7 | On the next page: Buy the Catalogue |
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