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Exploring Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community

Lunchtime Lecture

Tags for: Exploring Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community
  • Lecture
  • Ticket Required

Come to the CMA for a quick bite of art history. Every first Tuesday of each month, join curators, conservators, scholars, and other museum staff for 30-minute talks on objects currently on display in the museum galleries.

Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Britany Salsbury, Curator of Prints and Drawings
Location:  Gartner Auditorium
Suzanne and Paul Westlake Performing Arts Center
Free; Ticket Required
Reserve Ticket

About The Event

Initially founded as a settlement house in 1915, Karamu House became one of the best-known sites for Black American culture. Although noted today for its theater program, the institution housed a printmaking workshop beginning in the 1930s, where artists and community members alike—including a young Langston Hughes—could experiment with various techniques, playing on printmaking’s fundamental accessibility and democracy.  In this talk, the CMA’s Curator of Prints and Drawings Britany Salsbury discusses the history of Karamu Artists Inc., a group that counted some of the most recognized Black printmakers of the Works Progress Administration era—such as Elmer W. Brown, Hughie Lee-Smith, Charles Sallée, and William E. Smith—among its members.

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Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community

Tags for: Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community
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Printmaking played a groundbreaking role at Cleveland’s Karamu House, one of the best-known sites for Black American culture....
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Sponsors

All education programs at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Education. Principal support is provided by Dieter and Susan M. Kaesgen. Major annual support is provided by Brenda and Marshall Brown, David and Robin Gunning, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, Gail C. and Elliott L. Schlang, Shurtape Technologies, and the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation. Generous annual support is provided by Gini and Randy Barbato, the M. E. and F. J. Callahan Foundation, Dr. William A. Chilcote Jr. and Dr. Barbara S. Kaplan, Char and Chuck Fowler, the Giant Eagle Foundation, Robin Heiser, the late Marta and the late Donald M. Jack Jr., Bill and Joyce Litzler, the Logsdon Family Fund for Education, Sarah Nash, Courtney and Michael Novak, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, the Pickering Foundation, William Roj and Mary Lynn Durham, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Sally and Larry Sears Fund for Education Endowment, Roy Smith, Paula and Eugene Stevens, the Trilling Family Foundation, Jack and Jeanette Walton, and the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

    The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

    Education programs are supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.