Geometric Abstraction (c. 1950): Art, History and Details

Geometric Abstraction (c. 1950) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Pim van Os (Dutch, 1910–1954).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Active just after World War II, Pim van Os was a pioneering Dutch photographer who gained considerable recognition in postwar Europe for his experimental imagery. This abstract composition was made exclusively with the camera, and the movement of light is both the means of expression and the subject of the picture. Layered geometric shapes give the slightest sense of a three-dimensional arrangement of bold shapes.

Object facts

• Title: Geometric Abstraction
• Date: c. 1950
• Creator attribution: Pim van Os (Dutch, 1910–1954)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: gelatin silver print
• Dimensions: Image: 23.7 x 17.7 cm (9 5/16 x 6 15/16 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)
• Collection: PH - Misc. 20th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 1993.143

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “1993 Annual Report.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 6 (July 1994): 143–218.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.