Muse with Violin Screen (1930): Art, History and Details

Muse with Violin Screen (1930) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Paul Fehér (American, born Hungary, 1898–1990); Rose Iron Works (America, Ohio, Cleveland, est. 1904).

The work and its context

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

Since the early years of the 20th century, the Rose Iron Works, a Cleveland supplier of architectural ornament, has produced distinguished metalwork. The company’s founder, Martin Rose, was born in Austria-Hungary and studied ornamental metalsmithing in Vienna prior to immigrating to Cleveland in 1902. In the 1920s, he hired a talented young Parisian designer, Paul Fehér, to work for the firm. Fehér’s designs, culminating in this massive screen, brought a modern European sensibility to the Rose Iron Works production. With its geometric patterning, highly stylized and abstracted natural forms, and the central figure reminiscent of the celebrated jazz singer Josephine Baker, this screen reflects the classic motifs of Art Deco design.

Object facts

• Title: Muse with Violin Screen
• Date: 1930
• Creator attribution: Paul Fehér (American, born Hungary, 1898–1990); Rose Iron Works (America, Ohio, Cleveland, est. 1904)
• Culture: America, Ohio, Cleveland
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: Steel, brass; silver and gold plating, cotton velveteen
• Dimensions: Overall: 156.2 x 156.2 cm (61 1/2 x 61 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Furniture
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 2020.216

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• "The New Industrial Arts of the World," Arts and Decoration 34 (January 1931).
• Duncan, Alistair. American Art Deco (New York: Abrams, 1986).
• Claire, Jean, ed. The 1920s: Age of the Metropolis, exh. cat. (Montreal, Canada: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1991).

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.