Artwork Page for The White Dam

Details / Information for The White Dam

The White Dam

1939

Raphael Gleitsmann

(American, 1910–1995)
Culture
America, Ohio, Cleveland
Medium
oil on Masonite
Measurements
Framed: 103.5 x 116 x 5 cm (40 3/4 x 45 11/16 x 1 15/16 in.); Unframed: 97.8 x 112.7 cm (38 1/2 x 44 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1996.325
Copyright
Copyright
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
228B Cleveland Artists
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Did You Know?

Gleitsmann gave up painting entirely in 1954, claiming he “had nothing to say anymore.”

Description

Unable to afford tuition, Akron-based Gleitsmann befriended faculty and students at the Cleveland School (now Institute) of Art where eventually he was invited to take classes without registering. The White Dam, a fantastical image of an industrial complex that dwarfs two nude workers, earned his greatest success when it was featured in the New York World’s Fair of 1939. Gleitsmann’s unsettling vision of industry contrasts with the favorable attitudes typically adopted by artists of a previous generation.
A horizontally oriented oil painting looks over an industrial site toward a white dam. In the foreground, large black pipes and green machinery frame white buildings with red tiled roofs. Two tiny figures stand by a gray pool near reddish brown earth. Heavy, billowing clouds in shades of white and dark gray fill the sky above green hills and a single, vibrant red mountain, casting stylized shadows across the geometric landscape.

The White Dam

1939

Raphael Gleitsmann

(American, 1910–1995)
America, Ohio, Cleveland

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