The Pie Wagon (c. 1926): Art, History and Details

The Pie Wagon (c. 1926) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Carl Gaertner (American, 1898–1952).

The work and its context

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

One of the most widely exhibited artists working in Cleveland, Gaertner specialized in painting the city and its environs. His favored subjects include scenes of Cleveland’s industrial heyday, including The Pie Wagon. In this painting, the artist focused attention on the laborers who spend their lunch break milling around a horse-drawn bakery wagon in the shadows of the hulking factories.

Object facts

• Title: The Pie Wagon
• Date: c. 1926
• Creator attribution: Carl Gaertner (American, 1898–1952)
• Culture: America, Ohio, Cleveland
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Unframed: 105.8 x 153 cm (41 5/8 x 60 1/4 in.)
• Collection: American - Cleveland School
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1953.371

A detail from the museum

Star Bakery—identified by the logo on the wagon—was a flourishing business in Cleveland at the time.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. Carl Gaertner

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. "The Annual Exhibition: Foreword." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 16, no.5 (May 1926).
• Cleveland Institute of Art. Carl Gaertner Memorial Exhibition; Catalogue of an Exhibition of Works by Carl Gaertner. [Cleveland]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1953.
• Kirkwood, Marie. "Gaertner's Art Reflects Spirit, Youth and Wisdom." Cleveland News, June 20, 1953.

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.