The centerpiece of The Cleveland Museum of Art's new exhibition, The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s, was created right here in Cleveland. Muse with Violin highlights Art Deco style.
In 1929, Martin Rose, the founding patriarch of Rose Iron Works in Cleveland, built the room-decorating screen to be a demo piece as a way to recruit business that had dwindled after the crash of the U.S. stock market.
The original, two-dimensional design was the creation of Rose Iron Works chief designer Paul Feher, who along with Martin Rose is credited with the 5-foot-square screen centering around the nude figure of a woman holding a violin surrounded by decorative foliage and musical imagery.
Martin Rose's grandson, Bob Rose, sees the piece as a testament to the teamwork of his grandfather and Feher.
"[ Muse with Violin] required the incredible symbiotic relationship that Paul and Martin had. So one could not have survived or produced the genious metal work that they did without the other," Rose said.
While Feher was known in Europe as a exquisite designer before coming to Cleveland, it was Martin Rose who took Feher's hand-drawn design and brought it to life.
"My grandfather performed outright magic in transforming Paul's designs into three-dimensional metalwork," Rose said.
Starting Saturday their Muse with Violin takes center stage at CMA as the iconic image for the Jazz Age show on the cover of the exhibit catalog, all the promotional material and the exhibition itself.
"It's hard to pick up a book on American Art Deco and not find an image of the [ Muse with Violin] screen, and I'm really very proud of it," said Rose.
The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s is on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art September 30, 2017 - January 14, 2018.
