Cleveland Museum of Art celebrates Cleveland’s Rose Iron Works

Rose Iron Works, the family-owned, Cleveland source for premiere quality decorative metalwork, is the subject of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s (CMA) newest exhibition, Rose Iron Works and Art Deco. An important part of Cleveland’s artistic heritage, Rose Iron Works has been operating continuously since its founding in 1904, creating a legacy of industry, craftwork, and artistic production.

On view July 6, 2025, through October 19, 2025, in the Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery, Rose Iron Works and Art Deco traces the company’s journey from Art Nouveau to Art Deco during its first 30 years. The exhibition is free and open to all. 

In the early 1900s, Cleveland was one of the wealthiest cities in the United States and a center for metalworking, which made it an appealing place for Hungarian ornamental blacksmith Martin Rose, founder of Rose Iron Works, to start a business. It soon became one of the leading manufacturers of decorative metalwork in the United States, with decorative metalwork adorning some of the city’s most notable buildings.

Trained in Budapest and Vienna in a tradition that drew inspiration from recreating historical styles, Rose was interested in artistic and technological innovations. Around 1900, he adopted the Art Nouveau aesthetic, which used sinuous lines and organic forms inspired by nature, and in the late 1920s, a “modern” style. 

In 1925, a groundbreaking international exhibition in Paris presented modern decorative arts—a style that later became known as Art Deco. Rose’s compatriot and a designer active in Paris, Paul Fehér, joined Rose Iron Works in Cleveland a few years later. Their artistic collaboration resulted in some of the best Art Deco ironwork in the country, including the celebrated Muse with Violin Screen (1930), now in the CMA’s collection.  

“Rose Iron Works is important locally, nationally and internationally,” Ada de Wit, Ellen S. and Bruce V. Mavec Curator of Decorative Arts at the CMA, said. “This exhibition places Rose Iron Works in context with an elite network of blacksmiths and designers in Europe between the cities of Budapest, Hungary; Vienna, Austria; and Paris, France. It is apparent that Martin Rose had his finger on the pulse of European trends in the decorative arts and was able to translate them for a Cleveland audience.” 

In the Art Deco period, decorative metalwork connoted luxury through high-quality craftsmanship; modern, sophisticated design; and the use of expensive materials such as brass, chrome, and in some cases, silver and gold plating, as well as novel alloys like monel. Ornaments played an important role in architecture and were used on everything from public buildings and places of worship to banks and private homes, many of which can still be seen, for example, in Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights mansions.  

The exhibition showcases some of Rose Iron Works’ most notable Art Deco creations, including the now iconic Muse with Violin screen (1930), and loans from Rose Iron Works, such as an ambitious 90-foot frieze of the history of metalworking and a door grille salvaged from Halle Brothers Co. (1927), a high-end department store chain in Cleveland. Another significant loan is an overdoor (c. 1885) from the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest, made by Gyula Jungfer (Hungarian, 1841–1908), Rose’s teacher in Budapest and the most successful artist-blacksmith in Hungary. It represents the European tradition and training that shaped Rose’s career.  

About the Cleveland Museum of Art 

The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is renowned for the quality and breadth of its collection, which includes more than 66,500 artworks and spans 6,000 years of achievement in the arts. The museum is a significant international forum for exhibitions, scholarship, and performing arts and is a leader in digital innovation. One of the foremost encyclopedic art museums in the United States, the CMA is recognized for its award-winning open access program—which provides free digital access to images and information about works in the museum’s collection—and is free of charge to all. The museum is located in the University Circle neighborhood with two satellite locations on Cleveland’s west side: the Community Arts Center and Transformer Station.