Images

https://piction.clevelandart.org/cma/ump.di?e=178FF57285E917025AFB82B54A2BCAE52286891656EA190CEF87502F2EE06DD6&s=24247294&se=959515611&v=6&f=1953.371_o2.jpg

https://piction.clevelandart.org/cma/ump.di?e=7385970C106D26421E33367B895EA7794AAE636C02FD9E080FD5BE1A1C70B448&s=24247294&se=959515611&v=1&f=%5C1953.371_o2.jpg

Additional Views

Jun 27, 2007

The Pie Wagon

c. 1926

Carl Gaertner

(American, 1898–1952)

America, Ohio, Cleveland

Oil on canvas

Unframed: 105.8 x 153 cm (41 5/8 x 60 1/4 in.)

Gift of Mrs. Carl Gaertner 1953.371

Location

not on view

Did you know?

Star Bakery—identified by the logo on the wagon—was a flourishing business in Cleveland at the time.

Description

One of the most widely exhibited artists working in Cleveland, Gaertner specialized in painting the city and its environs. His favored subjects include scenes of Cleveland’s industrial heyday, including The Pie Wagon. In this painting, the artist focused attention on the laborers who spend their lunch break milling around a horse-drawn bakery wagon in the shadows of the hulking factories.

Artist biography

Carl Gaertner

A specialist in American scene subject matter, Cleveland-born Carl Gaertner exhibited an early aptitude for drawing. As a high-school student he studied mechanical design, but during his senior year he decided to make painting his primary avocation. In 1920 he enrolled at the Cleveland School of Art, graduating three years later after studying with Henry Keller and Frank Wilcox. In 1925 the school hired Gaertner to teach painting. During the 1920s and 1930s he went on summer painting excursions to Provincetown, Massachusetts, with Ora Coltman and George Adomeit. One of the most widely exhibited artists working in Cleveland, Gaertner showed at the Cleveland Museum of Art (1922–53), the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia (1924–52), the Art Institute of Chicago (1925–49), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (1943–48), and the National Academy of Design (1944–50). The Cleveland School of Art organized solo exhibitions of his paintings (1928, 1941), as did the Philadelphia Art Alliance (1948). In 1945 he began a long association with the Macbeth Galleries in New York. In 1952, after experiencing a severe headache while teaching at the art school, he went home and died unexpectedly of a brain hemorrhage.
Transformations in Cleveland Art (CMA, 1996), p. 228

Inscriptions

Inscription

signed lower left: Carl Gaertner.

Citations

The Cleveland Museum of Art. "The Annual Exhibition: Foreword." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 16, no.5 (May 1926). Mentioned: pp.118, 130. jstor.org

Cleveland Institute of Art. Carl Gaertner Memorial Exhibition; Catalogue of an Exhibition of Works by Carl Gaertner. [Cleveland]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1953. Mentioned: p.15, cat. 4 archive.org

Kirkwood, Marie. "Gaertner's Art Reflects Spirit, Youth and Wisdom." Cleveland News, June 20, 1953. Mentioned: p.7

Metzler, Paul B. "Carl Gaertner Memorial Show Opens Wednesday at Museum." Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 21, 1953. Mentioned: p.24-D

The Cleveland Institute of Art and The Cleveland Museum of Art. Carl Gaertner Memorial Exhibition; Catalogue of an Exhibition of Works by Carl Gaertner. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1953. Mentioned: p.15 archive.org

Clark, Edna Maria. Ohio Art and Artists. Richmond: Garrett and Massie, 1975. Mentioned: p.360

Hoffman, Jay, Dee Driscole, and Mary Clare Zahler. A Study in Regional Taste: The May Show, 1919-1975. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1977. Mentioned: p.77; Reproduced: p.49

Doezema, Marianne. American Realism and the Industrial Age. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1980. Mentioned: pp.70,139; Reproduced: p.69

Dunbar, Mary. "The American Connection." Plain Dealer Magazine, October 19, 1980. Mentioned and reproduced (unpaginated)

The Cleveland Institute of Art and The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Institute of Art--100 Years: December 22, 1982-January 30, 1983, the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982. Mentioned: p.29; Reproduced:p.17

Snyder, Jane. "Art museum, institute in joint celebration." Encore: The Chronicle-Telegram's Entertainment Magazine, January 7, 1983. Mentioned and reproduced (unpaginated)

Stearns, Robert. Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland. Minneapolis, MN: Arts Midwest, 2000. Mentioned: p.272; Reproduced: p.175

Shearer, Christine Fowler, William H. Robinson, Michael D. Hall, Ann Caywood Brown, and Susan S. Leggett. Carl Gaertner: A Story of Earth and Steel. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Artists Foundation, 2000. Mentioned: pp.8-9; Reproduced: p.9

Litt, Steven. "Grim visions: Work of once-popular artist re-emerges at Beck. The Plain Dealer, April 16, 2000. Mentioned: p.1-I

Ohio Historical Society and Ohio History Connection. Timeline: A Publication of the Ohio Historical Society, vol.20, no.2-3. Columbus, OH: The Ohio Historical Society, 2003. Mentioned: p.3; Reproduced: pp.2-3

Channing, Laurence, "Before Neo: The May Show", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 45 no. 07, September 2005 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 3 archive.org

Cole, Mark. "The Cleveland Gallery: Works by artists with ties to the city find a special home in the new east wing." The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 49 (September 2009). Mentioned: p.7; Reproduced: p.6

Johnston, April Nehring. The Making of Cleveland's Artist: The Aesthetic and Cultural Politics of Boundary Crossing in the Industrial Landscape Paintings of Carl Gaertner, 1923-1952. MA Thesis, Washington University in St. Louis, 2019. Mentioned: P. 56-59, 66-67; Reproduced: p. 57, fig. 3.5

Exhibition history

Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH (18 February-30 April 2000); exh. cat. no. 86, repr. p. 175, p. 272.

Burchfield to Schreckengost: Cleveland Art of the Jazz Age, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio (28 March-18 July, 2004); no exhibition catalogue.

The Cleveland Institute of Art: 100 Years. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 22, 1982-January 30, 1983).

Cleveland Art Comes of Age: 1919-1940. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 28-September 10, 1989).

Visions of America: Urban Realism 1900-1945. Columbus Museum of Art (January 5-March 3, 1996); Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City (April 5-June 2, 1996); The Butler Institute of American Art (organizer) (June 30-August 18, 1996).

Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland. Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH (organizer) (February 18-April 30, 2000).

Burchfield to Schreckengost: Cleveland Art of the Jazz Age. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 28-July 18, 2004).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=The Pie Wagon|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1953.371|author=Carl Gaertner|year=c. 1926|access-date=02 October 2023|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Contact us

The information about this object, including provenance, may not be currently accurate. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about this object, please email collectionsdata@clevelandart.org.

To request more information about this object, study images, or bibliography, contact the Ingalls Library Reference Desk.

All images and data available through Open Access can be downloaded for free. For images not available through Open Access, a detail image, or any image with a color bar, request a digital file from Image Services.

You are here:

Images

The Pie Wagon

The Pie Wagon

Carl Gaertner

Location

Download and Share

Did you know?

Description

Carl Gaertner

Inscription

Contact us