The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 25, 2024
21 Etchings and Poems
1960
(American, 1897–1987)
(American, 1900–1983)
(American, 1916–1994)
(American, 1911–1955)
(British, 1894–1978)
(American, 1903–2001)
(American, 1913–1980)
(American, 1910–1962)
(American, 1913-)
(American, 1913–1995)
(American, 1902–1971)
(French, born in Lithuania, 1891–1973)
(American, 1912–1995)
(American, 1905–1984)
(American, 1902–1993)
(American, 1903–1981)
(American, 1912–2002)
(Belgian, 1927-)
(American, 1921-)
(British, 1901–1988)
(American, 1904–1997)
John L. Severance Fund 1994.163
Location: not on view
Description
Was it snowing?--- When she gave me this little bit of snow, the sun was hiding so that nothing of our meeting should melt, so that the fire between us would light without any help, only through our warmth, for want of our silence, and from elsewhere. This print was commissioned as part of an artist's book called 21 Etchings and Poems. At the time of its creation, the book was the most significant collaboration between artists and poets in America. Here, Pierre Alechinsky and artist and poet Christian Dotremont demonstrate the collaborative spirit of COBRA. Alechinsky wrote Dotremont's poem in his own handwriting and signed the names of both artists to the plate. Alechinsky's etching, showing a round flea-like animal, is surrounded by an abstract background of flowing lines that seem to anticipate an artistic form later invented by Dotremont: the logogram. Logograms were beautifully calligraphic artworks that abstracted the written word, often to the point of illegibility, in order to challenge the frontier between painting and writing.- {{cite web|title=21 Etchings and Poems|url=false|author=Ben-Zion, Adja Yunkers, Andre Racz, Attilio Salemme, Ben Nicholson, Esteban Vicente, Ezio Martinelli, Franz Kline, Fred Becker, Helen Phillips, Irene Rice Pereira, Jacques Lipchitz, Karl Schrag, Kurt Roesch, Letterio Calapai, Louis Schanker, Peter Grippe, Pierre Alechinsky, Salvatore Grippi, Stanley William Hayter, Willem de Kooning|year=1960|access-date=25 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1994.163