Description: Cleveland Museum of Art viewed from University Circle. The Cleveland Museum of Art is located at 11150 East Boulevard in Cleveland, Ohio and is on the north side of Wade Lagoon. The museum was founded in 1913 and opened on June 6, 1916. The art museum was funded by Cleveland industrialists Hinman B. Hurlbut, John Huntington, and Horace Kelley. The Wade Park property was donated for the museum site by Jeptha H. Wade II. The Cleveland firm of Hubbell & Benes designed the neoclassic building which was constructed of white Georgian marble. The cost of of the building was $1.25 million. University Circle is bounded by Wade Park Ave. on the north; E. 105th on the west; and the RTA tracks on the east and south sides. The circle occupies 488 acres. It was in 1799 that the land was first settled with the establishment of Nathaniel Doan's tavern at what is now E. 107th St. and Euclid Ave., but was then called Doan's Corners. University Circle began to take shape in the 1880s when Western Reserve University moved its campus from Hudson, OH, to Euclid Ave. in 1883. Case School of Applied Science moved from downtown Cleveland to a location adjacent to WRU in 1885 (eventually to be federated with its neighbor in 1967 as Case Western Reserve University.). In the same decade, Jeptha H. Wade donated to the City of Cleveland a large piece of land that adjoined the WRU campus, stipulating that the land be used as a public park with an art gallery. The name of the area was taken from a streetcar stop on a line running on Euclid to a turnaround at E. 107th known as University Circle. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B04F10_37_01
Subjects: Cleveland Museum of Art; University Circle (Cleveland, Ohio)--History--Pictorial works.
Places: Cleveland (Ohio); Cuyahoga County (Ohio)
 

Description: Caption on reverse reads: "The Thinker - Cleveland Art Museum (1). Cleveland, Ohio." The inscription on the plaque reads: "The Thinker by Auguste Rodin, gift of Ralph King." The statue outside the Cleveland Museum of Art was badly damaged by vandalism in 1970 and is displayed in its unrepaired state. The Thinker (the original) is a bronze and marble sculpture by Auguste Rodin held in the Musée Rodin in Paris. It depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful internal struggle. Over twenty monumental size bronze casts of the sculpture are in museums around the world. In addition there are sculptures of different study size scales and plaster models in both monumental and study sizes. There are some newer castings that have been produced posthumously and are not considered part of the original production. Originally named The Poet, the piece was part of a commission by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris to create a monumental portal to act as the door of the museum. Rodin based his theme on The Divine Comedy of Dante and entitled the portal The Gates of Hell. Each of the statues in the piece represented one of the main characters in the epic poem. The Thinker was originally meant to depict Dante in front of the Gates of Hell, pondering his great poem. The sculpture is nude, as Rodin wanted a heroic figure in the tradition of Michelangelo, to represent intellect as well as poetry. Rodin made a first small plaster version around 1880. The first large-scale bronze cast was finished in 1902, but not presented to the public until 1904. It became the property of the city of Paris – thanks to a subscription organized by Rodin admirers – and was put in front of the Panthéon in 1906. In 1922, it was moved to the Hôtel Biron, which was transformed into a Rodin Museum. The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum situated in Wade Park, in the University Circle neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. The Cleveland Museum of Art has remained historically true to the vision of its founders, being the only major American museum keeping general admission free to the public View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B09F10_045_1
Subjects: Bronze sculpture; Art museums--United States; Cleveland Museum of Art; Rodin, Auguste, 1840-1917. Thinker
Places: Cleveland (Ohio); Cuyahoga County (Ohio)