The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of May 30, 2026

A horizontally oriented acrylic painting depicts a stainless steel ruler lying horizontally in the approximate center of the vertical, light orange-brown wooden floorboards that fill the painting. Fine striations run vertically down the wood. The ruler displays the numbers for seventeen inches on either side and, across the center, the text "EXACT LEVEL & TOOL MFG. Co., Inc. HIGH BRIDGE. N.J., U.S.A. Y-8."

Exact Ruler II

1974

Sylvia Plimack Mangold

(American, b. 1938)
America
acrylic on canvas
61 x 76.2 cm (24 x 30 in.)
Gift of Agnes Gund in memory of Mary Krogness 2025.147
© 1974 Sylvia Plimack Mangold
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Sylvia Plimack Mangold used rulers as tools to make her paintings before incorporating them into the paintings’ compositions.

Description

Exact Ruler II (1974) depicts a stainless steel ruler, lying horizontally across a span of vertical wooden floorboards that fill the painting’s frame. It belongs to Sylvia Plimack Mangold’s series of paintings, made between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s, comprising meticulous renderings of floors, often with rulers, graph paper, and masking tape. As they engage numerous art historical traditions, these paintings also model—and encourage—the practice of paying exquisite attention to one’s surroundings.
  • 2025–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Sylvia Plimack Mangold: Floors and Rulers, 1967-76. New York: Craig F. Starr Gallery, 2016. Essay by Susan Harris. Illus. front cover (detail), pl. 7, cat. no. 7, cited in essay fig. 7 (unpaginated)
    Yau, John. “Sylvia Plimack Mangold Has the Floor.” Hyperallergic (March 20, 2016) hyperallergic.com
    Mangold, Sylvia Plimack, Helen Molesworth, and Craig F. Starr Gallery (New York, N.Y.). Sylvia Plimack Mangold : Tapes, Fields, and Trees, 1975-84. New York: Craig Starr Gallery, 2024. Color Illustration, pl. 7.
  • Sylvia Plimack Mangold: Floors and Rulers, 1967-76. Craig F. Starr Gallery, New York (February 5–March 26, 2016)
  • {{cite web|title=Exact Ruler II|url=false|author=Sylvia Plimack Mangold|year=1974|access-date=30 May 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2025.147