CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Museum of Art will open a new exhibition that surrounds the city’s Karamu House, which is one of the best-known sites for Black American culture.
The exhibition “Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community” will highlight the role of printmaking at the Karamu House.
The site was opened in 1915 by a pair of Oberlin College graduates with a goal of creating a common ground where people of different races, religions, social and economic backgrounds could come together. It was initially a settlement house. In the 1930s, it housed a printmaking workshop. Today, it’s known for its theater program.
The exhibit will feature more than 60 prints created by Karamu Artists Inc., a group that included Elmer Brown, William Smith, Hughie Lee-Smith and more. The prints will allow visitors to explore the role graphic arts played at the Karamu House.
The exhibit opens Sunday, March 23 and runs through Sunday, Aug. 17 in the James and Hanna Bartlett Prints and Drawing Galleries. It is free to the public.
“Karamu Artists Inc. was one of the most influential collectives of Black printmakers in the 1930s and 1940s,” said Britany Salsbury, curator of prints and drawings. “Although the group is mentioned frequently in histories of the Works Progress Administration and the Harlem Renaissance, its members’ accomplishments deserve substantive attention, and we are thrilled to partner with Karamu House to shed new light on their work. Their pioneering vision of printmaking as a means of connecting artists with communities is more relevant today than ever.”
