Photograph by Phil Armstrong courtesy CAM
Grab your bike and take a ride to the Cincinnati Art Museum to see its newest exhibition examining the history of the bike and how its changed over time, from the 1860s to present day.
Created in partnership with the Bicycle Museum of America and The Church—a nonprofit arts organization based in Sag Harbor, New York—Cycle Thru! The Art of the Bike features 25 bikes that illustrate how bicycle design has changed over time, displayed alongside various artworks from the museum’s personal collection.
“[CAM Director Cameron Kitchin] was in Sag Harbor and visited The Church, and they had a bicycle exhibit. He noticed all the bikes were from one lender in Ohio, and it happened to be the Bicycle Museum of America in New Bremen, Ohio,” says Amy Dehan, curator of decorative arts and design. “We thought we should partner with that. We should do something like this too because it’s an accessible, fun show that has a lot of entry points and is cross-generational.”
The exhibition features 25 bikes from across nearly two centuries of history, including the cast iron velocipede of the mid-1800s, the Wolff-American Ice Bicycle of the
Featuring more than 25 bikes from across nearly two centuries of history, Cycle Thru! encourages visitors to ponder the role of bicycles as an evolving icon, a connector of cultures, and a vehicle for autonomy and freedom to all.
Photograph by Phil Armstrong courtesy CAM
“The bicycles are arranged chronologically in the show because we wanted to give people a sense of the design and history of the bike as an evolving icon, and to encourage people to see the various factors that led to its different iterations, whether it be for comfort or safety or accessibility, and how they changed because of social, historical, or artistic events,” says Dehan.
The exhibit showcases changes in innovation and design over time, from the cast-iron velocipede of the mid-1800s, to the Wolff-American Ice Bicycle of the early 1900s—the first bike engineered to traverse frozen terrain—and the Huffy Radiobike of the 1950s, designed to play music.
The exhibition features the famous Schwinn DX Cruiser that starred in Tim Burton’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, and a replica high wheel from the 1880s, which visitors will be permitted to sit on.
The art displayed on the walls alongside the bicycles were handpicked from the museum’s collection to give a comprehensive story about bike history.
“We mined our collection, looking for everything that we had that relates to bicycles in some way,” says Dehan. “We found a great group of objects, everything from fashion to prints to photography to drawings, and we’ve paired those with some of the bikes in the exhibition … It’s been a lot of fun just watching folks of all ages, all backgrounds just talk about bicycles and look closely at them, just connecting with each other.”
Visitors who ride to the CAM and take a photo with their bike while on museum grounds can get free admission to the exhibition, which will be on display through August 24. Tickets for Cycle Thru! can also be used to access special exhibitions Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior from April 4 to May 4 or Farm to Table: Food and Identity in the Age of Impressionism from June 13 to August 24.
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