The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 16, 2024
Circles Plus Triangles
c. 1928
(American, 1898–1991)
Image: 24.6 x 32.8 cm (9 11/16 x 12 15/16 in.); Second mount: 34.3 x 41.9 cm (13 1/2 x 16 1/2 in.); First mount: 24.9 x 38.1 cm (9 13/16 x 15 in.); Matted: 45.7 x 55.9 cm (18 x 22 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1998.162
Location: not on view
Description
During his brief career spanning the 1920s and early 1930s, Kira was the most significant Japanese American Pictoralist in the American West. Although he worked with a variety of subjects, he is best known for his still-life photography. This deceptively simple composition of one basket supported by two others, all carefully and eloquently placed in a simple, neutral setting, is enlivened by his use of dramatic light and shadows. His emphasis on line, tone, shallow pictorial space, silhouettes, and rhythmic shadow patterns suggests a modern photographic sensibility, especially one promoted by German photographers in the 1920s. However, Kira purposely continued to work within the tenets of Pictoralism and its attention to beauty, both in subject matter and print quality and presentation.- The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).MOCA Cleveland (6/9/2006 - 8/20/2006): "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art", no. 71, p. 119.Los Angeles, George J. Doizaki Gallery, April 19 - June 1, 1986: "Japanese Photography in America 1920-1940," listed no. 62 in exhibition catalogue.
- {{cite web|title=Circles Plus Triangles|url=false|author=Hiromu Kira|year=c. 1928|access-date=16 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1998.162