Paris Gate (c. 1923): Art, History and Details

Paris Gate (c. 1923) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Frank Wilcox (American, 1887–1964).

The work and its context

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

This image may be set in the Zone, an area beyond Paris proper but within the city limits that was neglected between 1871 and 1929. While construction in the Zone was forbidden, migrant workers and travelers lived in the area, building houses and businesses. Here, Wilcox seems to have depicted a road leading through the Zone and into the city. Clearly, the area is not bustling: the street is blocked by an unloading cart in front of a building that emerges from the side of a hill.

Object facts

• Title: Paris Gate
• Date: c. 1923
• Creator attribution: Frank Wilcox (American, 1887–1964)
• Culture: America, Ohio, Cleveland
• Type: Print
• Technique: etching
• Dimensions: Platemark: 17.3 x 22.4 cm (6 13/16 x 8 13/16 in.); Paper: 25.2 x 27.8 cm (9 15/16 x 10 15/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Etching
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1924.615

A detail from the museum

As late as the 1920s, travelers passed through physical gates set into a wall to enter Paris.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• W. M. M. “Review of the Exhibition.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 11, no. 5 (1924): 99, 103.
• Frank Wilcox Entry Card to 1924 May Show. Cleveland Museum of Art May Show Records, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.

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.