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Tags for: Barbara Bosworth: Sun Light Moon Shadow
  • Special Exhibition

Barbara Bosworth: Sun Light Moon Shadow

Sunday, February 25–Sunday, June 30, 2024
Location:  230 Photography
Mark Schwartz and Bettina Katz Photography Galleries
Free; no ticket required

About The Exhibition

When photographer Barbara Bosworth was a child growing up in Novelty, Ohio, she would go on nighttime walks with her father, and they would gaze up at the sky. This practice, which became a lifelong passion, inspired the photographs in this exhibition. Timed to coincide with the total solar eclipse visible in Cleveland on April 8, it explores Bosworth’s photographs of light—from eclipses, sunrises, and sunsets to the luminescent glow of fireflies and a flashlight. 

Light is essential to both photography and astronomy. British scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel coined the term photography in 1839 by combining Greek words that mean “drawing with light.” The camera and telescope, which Bosworth has used together in some of the photographs on view, each collect light. Her pictures of stars are the result of the impact on film of light that has traveled millions of years to get there.

Nine monumental color images of the sky and heavenly bodies are joined by six intimately scaled black-and-white scenes of life and light on the earth. Seen together, they suggest how we endow astronomical phenomena with personal meaning. Bosworth’s art elucidates bonds between humans and the natural world that often go unnoticed.

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Sponsors

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, the John and Jeanette Walton Exhibition Fund, and Margaret and Loyal Wilson. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Richard and Dian Disantis, the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, the Frankino-Dodero Family Fund for Exhibitions Endowment, Florence Kahane Goodman, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Marta Jack and the late Donald M. Jack Jr., Carl T. Jagatich, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, the Roy Minoff Family Fund, Lu Anne and the late Carl Morrison, Jeffrey Mostade and Eric Nilson and Varun Shetty, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Michael and Cindy Resch, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, Paula and Eugene Stevens, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.

    The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

    This exhibition was supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.

    logotypes for Cuyahoga arts and culture and the Ohio Arts Council