Hillside Houses, Cleveland West Side

c. 1914–17

Hillside Houses, Cleveland West Side, c. 1914–17. August Frederick Biehle (American, 1885–1979). Graphite, gouache; sheet: 19.1 x 28.6 cm (7 1/2 x 11 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Frederick Biehle 2019.221 The drawing was made as preparatory to August Biehle’s most significant oil painting in his modernist period (2018.306) depicting Cleveland’s west side. Biehle captured the steep embankment with houses on the top and bottom of the hill, noting its location as “from 14th street toward 55th st.” Biehle was born and trained in Cleveland and studied further in Munich. While supporting himself as a commercial lithographer, he participated in a number of local exhibitions devoted to cutting-edge art at a time when there was little support. Around 1914, the artist August Biehle sketched this scene of Cleveland’s west side from the viewpoint of 14th Street looking toward 55th Street.