Peacocks with Cherry Tree

1984

Peacocks with Cherry Tree, 1984. Joseph O'Sickey (American, 1918–2013). Pen and black ink and white gouache with bronze metallic paint on white wove paper; image and sheet: 35.5 x 43 cm (14 x 16 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift 2020.147 Joseph O'Sickey spent much of his life and career in Northeast Ohio, where he took classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art as a child and later taught at the Cleveland Institute of Art, among other institutions. This watercolor is one of many that the artist made, seeing the medium as well suited for his creative experimentation with color and form. O'Sickey favored vivid tones, such as the bright blue seen here, taking inspiration from European artists such as Henri Matisse. Joseph O'Sickey described his process saying that "every mark had to have its room and clarity.”