1928 Suchy Pictorial Map of Cleveland, Ohio

This is a striking example of Arthur Suchy's 1928 pictorial map of Cleveland, Ohio - Suchy's hometown - accompanied by its original mailer envelope. The map covers from Cleveland's waterfront on Lake Erie south to the Cuyahoga River, beyond which, space is dedicated to historical vignettes and illustrations of local landmarks. Much emphasis is given to Cleveland's 'Forest City' qualities, with tree-filled residential blocks and parks noted. At the same time, skyscrapers and smoking factories underscore Cleveland's industrial might. Among the vignettes is an illustration of Moses Cleveland, the city's founder.

20th Century Pictorial Cartography

Pictorial qualities have been common in cartography from at least from the 16th century, when publishers like Braun and Hogenberg incorporated view-like qualities and other pictorial elements into their famous city plans. Braun and Hogenberg, and similar cartographers, issued their town books to express, not necessarily the geography of their subjects, but rather the 'essence' of the town/city. As mathematics and surveying principles became more advanced, travel increased, and the ability to translate 2-dimensional cartographic perspectives into an understanding of the actual world became commonplace, maps themselves transformed. By the late 19th century most maps had become geographical tools that illustrated the region cartographically, but failed in the original raison d'être as expressed by Braun and Hogenberg, to illustrate a place's 'essence'. So, where a city map of 19th century Paris might provide a completely navigable presentation of the city, one could glean almost nothing of Paris' character from it. In the late 18th century, the first modern 'pictorial' style maps developed. These maps, like Tomas Lopez's 1788 map of Seville, attempted to provide both cartographic accuracy and pictorial elements that might convey the character of the city. In that case, Lopez incorporated pictorial vignettes to illustrate important buildings and monuments. This style became increasingly common throughout the 19th century and early 20th centuries, particularly for centers of commerce like London, Paris, and Rome, where they are often mass-produced and referred to as 'monumental' maps. The style further evolved in the early to mid-20th century, when revolutionary cartographers and illustrators like MacDonald Gill, Jo Mora, Arthur Suchy, Frank Dorn, Ernest Dudley Chase, and many others, combined vignette-style illustrations, modern printing techniques, inspiration from Japanese printmaking and manga, and from clever satirical cartographers/artists like Fred Rose, to produce maps that once again focused on revealing the essence a place, usually, but not always, at the sacrifice of cartographic precision.

Publication History and Census

This map was drawn and published by Suchy in 1928. It is his third map, following only his maps of Colgate University (1927) and Swarthmore College (1927). The map was printed in Rochester, New York, by DuBois Press. The copyright was filed on July 16, 1928. Scarce.