CLEVELAND, OH.- The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is pleased to announce the opening of its newest exhibition, Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community, highlighting the role of printmaking at Cleveland’s Karamu House, one of the best-known sites for Black American culture since its opening in 1915.

Free to the public, this exhibition brings together more than 60 prints created by Karamu Artists Inc.—a group that included Elmer W. Brown, Hughie Lee-Smith, Charles Sallée, and William E. Smith, among others—exploring the groundbreaking role that the graphic arts played at Karamu House. Visitors can view the exhibition beginning on Sunday, March 23, through Sunday, August 17, 2025, in the James and Hanna Bartlett Prints and Drawings Galleries.

Initially founded as a settlement house in 1915 by Russell and Rowena Jelliffe, Karamu House soon became known for using the arts as a means of encouraging racial integration. Although noted today for its theater program, Karamu 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.

“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.”

“Karamu Artists Inc. came together over a shared interest in the democratic possibilities of the graphic arts,” said Erin Benay, associate professor of art history at Case Western Reserve University and cocurator of the exhibition. “With accessible techniques and inexpensive materials, the artists were able to experiment, explore, and collaborate. That collaborative, community-based spirit continued well into the 1960s and ’70s, when racial unrest brought leading artists, poets, and activists to Karamu House. Although Karamu Artists Inc. had long since disbanded by this time, it inspired a new generation of Black artists in Cleveland and fostered the development of a Black art market in the city. Bound by the belief that art strengthens communities and brings people together, Karamu House is still an active ‘gathering place,’ as its Swahili name implies.”

While a landmark 1942 traveling exhibition of prints by members of Karamu Artists Inc. highlighted their expression of collective and personal identity, the CMA’s exhibition is the first to situate Karamu Artists Inc. and its innovative use of the graphic arts within the broader context of American art during the 1930s and ’40s, such as the Works Progress Administration and the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance. This exhibition offers a chance for visitors to see the role these artists played in the development of a community for Black art in Cleveland, for which they gained national recognition.

Karamu Artists Inc. includes works from the museum’s collection as well as important loans from local and national institutions, and is accompanied by a richly illustrated publication, featuring essays by leading scholars of Black American art.