The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of February 23, 2026

Forest

1916

Jean Arp

(French, 1887–1966)
France, 20th century
painted wood
Overall: 41.3 x 53 x 8.3 cm (16 1/4 x 20 7/8 x 3 1/4 in.)
Contemporary Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art 1970.52
© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Location: 225 German Expressionism & Surrealism

Did You Know?

Making this relief sculpture out of wood and titling it "Forest" may have been a pun created by the artist.

Description

This relief sculpture, or sculpture with three dimensional elements projecting from a flat base, may have been inspired by branches, roots, and foliage Jean Arp observed on walks along the shores of Lake Zurich in Zurich, Switzerland, a neutral and safe city where Arp and other modern artists lived during World War I. The yellow shape at the top may allude to the sun or moon. This and another painted wood sculptural relief by Arp, also titled Forest, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, are considered the first modernist landscape sculptures, radical in their simplicity and inventiveness at the time.
  • Roland Penrose Collection, London
    Paul Éluard Collection, Paris
  • The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 246 archive.org
    Henning, Edward B. The Spirit of Surrealism. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1979. Reproduced: p. 16, no. 6A, Colorplate VII; Mentioned: p. 15-16, 171
    Henning, Edward B. “A Painting by Joan Miró.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 66, no. 6 (September 1979): 235–240. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 236-237, fig. 3 www.jstor.org
    Carmean, E. A. and National Gallery of Art (U.S.). Arp, the Dada Reliefs : [Exhibition] National Gallery of Art, July 3-October 30 1983. [Washington, D.C.]: [The Gallery], 1983. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 2
    Henning, Edward B. Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Published by the Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1987. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 126, no. 34
    Dickerman, Leah. Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, Paris. Washington [D.C.]: National Gallery of Art in association with D.A.P./ Distributed Art Publishers, New York, 2005. Mentioned: p. 38; Reproduced: p. 67, no. 38
    Dickerman, Leah, Matthew Affron, and Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.). Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925 : How a Radical Idea Changed Modern Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art: Distributed in the United States and Canada by Artbook/D.A.P., 2012. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 285, no. 340; Mentioned: p. 274-276
    Spies, Christian. "Sculpture and/or Object: Hans Arp Between Minimal and Pop." In Hans Arp and Other Masters of 20th Century Sculpture. Elisa Tamaschke, Jana Teuscher, and Loretta Wurtenberger, eds., 142-159. Berlin: Stiftung Hans Arp & Sophie Taeuber-Arp e.V., 2020. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 142-143, fig. 2
  • Inventing Abstraction, 1912-1925. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (organizer) (December 23, 2012-April 15, 2013).
    Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008).
    Dada. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (organizer) (February 19-May 14, 2006); The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (June 16-September 11, 2006).
    Conserving the Past for the Future. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 4-May 6, 2001).
    Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 16-November 8, 1987).
    Year in Review: 1970. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-March 7, 1971).
  • {{cite web|title=Forest|url=false|author=Jean Arp|year=1916|access-date=23 February 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1970.52