Art, literature & history
Accent Grave
1955
- Dating
- Exact year
- Held at
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 196 x 136 x 5 cm (77 3/16 x 53 9/16 x 1 15/16 in.); Unframed: 191.1 x 131.4 cm (75 1/4 x 51 3/4 in.)
- Collection no.
- 1967.3
- Attribution
- By the artist
- Image rights
- Copyright protected (WikiArt label)License details
Franz Kline. Accent Grave. Image: WikiArt. Copyright protected (WikiArt label). Proportionally resized and JPEG compressed; no crop.
Collection: The Cleveland Museum of Art
About this artwork
Accent Grave — Franz Kline. 1955.
Medium: oil on canvas. Dimensions: Framed: 196 x 136 x 5 cm (77 3/16 x 53 9/16 x 1 15/16 in.); Unframed: 191.1 x 131.4 cm (75 1/4 x 51 3/4 in.).
Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.
Although Kline's paintings look as if they were executed in a spontaneous burst of activity, they were often painstakingly pre-planned through preliminary studies. Additionally, as in the case of Accent Grave, close inspection reveals passages of reworked areas - white over black and vice-versa - indicating that the final composition was carefully orchestrated. The painting's title derives from the downward sloping black shape in its upper region, which suggests an accent grave in French phonetics.
Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.
Location checked Sep 10, 2026. This does not indicate whether the work is on display.