The Building of the Dam (1908): Art, History and Details

The Building of the Dam (1908) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Julian Alden Weir (American, 1852–1919).

The work and its context

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

Julian Alden Weir's painting shows the construction of the Scotland Dam, built between 1907 and 1909 on the Shetucket River near his summer home in Windham, Connecticut. The artist had a vested interest in the subject, as the dam ensured an energy supply to the area's inhabitants that included his family.

Object facts

• Title: The Building of the Dam
• Date: 1908
• Creator attribution: Julian Alden Weir (American, 1852–1919)
• Culture: America
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 93.5 x 118.5 x 7.5 cm (36 13/16 x 46 5/8 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 76 x 101.6 cm (29 15/16 x 40 in.)
• Collection: American - Painting
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1927.171

A detail from the museum

The artist was the 14th of 16 children born to his parents.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Pyne, Kathleen A. Art and the Higher Life : Painting and Evolutionary Thought in Late Nineteenth-Century America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of an Exhibition of American Painting from 1860 until Today at the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: [Printed by the Artcraft Printing Co.], 1937.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

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.