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Cupola, 1958-60 is in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Description
Cupola is an oil on canvas painting done by American painter Franz Kline.

Upon first sight the works look like big strokes put down haphazardly at times in black and white, with a certain boldness but seemingly incomprehensible as the symbols of mysterious Oriental writing (Dragone 3). Kline is an American painter who has taken over a series of forms of the figural culture of Europe and Asia, but at the same time he has given these forms a new substance. Cupola has been in numerous international exhibitions such as the Museo Civico di Torino, Kunsthalle, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Palais des Beaux-Arts Brussels, Musee D'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Museum des 20 Jahrhunderts, Stedelijk Museum (The Hague 2).

Historical information
Collectors took notice of him after his first solo exhibition in New York during the 1950s, public recognition came later with subsequent debuts. Kline rose to the level of Pollock and de Kooning's notoriety. He became one of the major exponents of Abstract Expressionism (The Hague 2). Although he is not credited as being the creator of action painting, Franz Kline is considered to be one of the most influential action painters, his gestural technique would be loaded with the explosive power of suggestion. The shape is robust, splintery and beam like, which appears to embody the forces of offence and defense, attraction and repulsion. Kline balances his strokes to produce a tension that explodes off the canvas. His strokes consume the paint and the canvas is emancipated from its role as container. Kline's creations extend beyond the physical limitations of the canvas, his images seek to conquer space and motion outside of itself. In Kline's paintings pattern becomes subservient to energy. Kline's works reflect his personal philosophy, in all things he was positive rather than destructive or negative. He did not deliberately disengage from European artistic traditions, instead Kline developed works that were American in subject, technique and sensibility (Jeannerat 13).

Acquisition
Gift from the Women's Committee Fund, 1962.