The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 29, 2025
Pair of Bookends
c. 1925–29
Location: not on view
Did You Know?
The colorful enameled surfaces and stylized form of these feline bookends express the child-like simplicity of their design.Description
Artisans working in Austria, especially in Vienna, during the years before the First World War embraced the concept that within every child is an artist and in every artist there is a child. This idea conveyed a sense of liberation from the strictures of formality and tradition. In the 1920s the Vienna Workshop (Wiener Werkstätte) promoted the work of prominent toy designers as serious expressions of art to be studied alongside other artistic genres such as painting and sculpture admired by adults. The colorful compositions and sense of whimsy in these designs for children reflected Viennese decorative art in general between the wars.- 1930(Exhibition of Austrian Arts and Crafts, Vienna, Austria, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)1930-The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- Stories from Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).Art Deco. The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH (organizer) (December 2, 1973-January 27, 1974).
- {{cite web|title=Pair of Bookends|url=false|author=|year=c. 1925–29|access-date=29 April 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1930.71