{ "data": { "id": 119964, "accession_number": "1940.76", "share_license_status": "Copyrighted", "tombstone": "Sharecropper, 1940. William E. Smith (American, 1913\u20131997). Linocut; image: 20.4 x 15.4 cm (8 1/16 x 6 1/16 in.); sheet: 28.6 x 23.8 cm (11 1/4 x 9 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland, 1940.76. \u00a9 William E. Smith", "current_location": null, "title": "Sharecropper", "creation_date": "1940", "creation_date_earliest": 1940, "creation_date_latest": 1940, "artists_tags": [ "Black American Artists", "May Show", "male" ], "culture": [ "America, Ohio, Cleveland" ], "technique": "linocut", "support_materials": [], "department": "Prints", "collection": "PR - Linocut", "type": "Print", "measurements": "Image: 20.4 x 15.4 cm (8 1/16 x 6 1/16 in.); Sheet: 28.6 x 23.8 cm (11 1/4 x 9 3/8 in.)", "dimensions": { "image": { "height": 0.204, "width": 0.154 }, "sheet": { "height": 0.286, "width": 0.238 } }, "state_of_the_work": null, "edition_of_the_work": "10", "copyright": "\u00a9 William E. Smith", "inscriptions": [ { "inscription": "inscribed, lower left margin, in graphite: \"SHARE CROPPER\"; lower right margin, in graphite: William E. Smith 1940", "inscription_translation": null, "inscription_remark": null, "sortorder": null } ], "exhibitions": { "current": [ { "id": 382031, "title": "The May Show: 22nd Annual Exhibition of Works by Cleveland Artists and Craftsmen", "description": "The May Show: 22nd Annual Exhibition of Works by Cleveland Artists and Craftsmen. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 1-June 9, 1940).", "opening_date": "1940-05-01T04:00:00" }, { "id": 311873, "title": "Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946", "description": "Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 19-July 21, 1996).", "opening_date": "1996-05-19T04:00:00" }, { "id": 667699, "title": "Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community", "description": "Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 23-August 17, 2025).", "opening_date": "2025-03-23T04:00:00" } ], "legacy": [] }, "provenance": [], "find_spot": null, "related_works": [], "former_accession_numbers": [], "did_you_know": "The artist wrote that he made this image hoping to \u201cwaken the people to the waste of the sharecropper system.\u201d", "description": "This print by William E. Smith was one of the first by any Black American artist to enter the CMA\u2019s collection. It was purchased from the museum\u2019s May Show, an annual exhibition highlighting regional contemporary art. Karamu Artists Inc. used this juried display to establish a reputation locally that they were then able to leverage into further opportunities. The praise that their prints received was widely noted at a time when Black artists were otherwise unrepresented in museums; as a critic for Cleveland\u2019s historically Black newspaper, the Call and Post, noted, \u201cA feeling of deep racial pride was mine as I noticed the names of [members of Karamu Artists Inc. in the galleries].\u201d", "external_resources": { "wikidata": [ "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80015307" ], "internet_archive": [] }, "citations": [ { "citation": "William E. Smith Entry Card to 1940 May Show. Cleveland Museum of Art May Show Records, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.", "page_number": null, "url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMS05649/" }, { "citation": "Robinson, William H., et. al. Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.", "page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 190-191, fig.196; Mentioned: p. 250, no. 182", "url": "" }, { "citation": "Salsbury, Britany, and Erin E. Benay. Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2025.", "page_number": "Reproduced: p. 48, no. 18", "url": "" } ], "catalogue_raisonne": "Teller 18; Salsbury, Benay, and Kruse 110", "url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1940.76", "images": {}, "alternate_images": [], "creditline": "Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland", "image_credit": null, "sketchfab_id": null, "sketchfab_url": null, "gallery_donor_text": null, "athena_id": 119964, "creators": [ { "id": 7978, "description": "William E. Smith (American, 1913\u20131997)", "extent": null, "qualifier": null, "role": "artist", "biography": "A highly skilled printmaker, William Elijah Smith specialized in genre scenes of working-class African-American life in Cleveland. Born in Chattanooga, Smith moved to Cleveland at the age of 13 and became involved with Karamu House, learning print making and stage design. He studied art at the Huntington Polytechnic Institute, 1933\u201334. During this time he began teaching at Karamu House and continued to do so until 1940. In 1941 he won the art competition for presenting one of his prints to the Library of Congress for its permanent collection. Smith exhibited at the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts in Hartford (1935), in the annual May Shows at the Cleveland Museum of Art (1936\u2013 49), at the Associated American Artists Galleries of New York (1942), and at Atlanta University (1942). During World War II, he served as a photographer in the army\u2019s educational department. After the war, he returned to Cleveland and established a commercial silkscreening studio. In 1946 the Lyman Brothers\u2019 Gallery in Indianapolis mounted his first solo exhibition. From 1946 to 1948 he studied painting and printmaking at the Cleveland School of Art and the Cooper School of Art. In the late 1940s Smith moved to Los Angeles, where he associated with Curtis Tann, a former colleague from Karamu House. With Tann, Smith cofounded the Eleven Associated Artists Gallery, the first Los Angeles gallery devoted specifically to African art. In 1952 Smith was hired to work as a blueprint draftsman at Lockheed Aircraft, beginning a long association with the corporation. In 1960 he cofounded Art West Associated, an African-American artists\u2019 advocacy organization in Los Angeles. In 1970 he published illustrations of subjects from African-American history for Cleveland\u2019s New Day Press. Smith\u2019 s works were displayed ins numerous group exhibitions in the Los Angeles area (1960s\u201380s).
Transformations in Cleveland Art. (CMA, 1996), p. 238", "name_in_original_language": null, "birth_year": "1913", "death_year": "1997", "use_in_caption": true, "include_extent": false, "weight": 1 } ], "legal_status": "accessioned", "accession_date": "1940-04-29T00:00:00", "sortable_date": 1940, "date_added_to_oa": null, "date_text": "1940", "collapse_artists": false, "on_loan": false, "recently_acquired": false, "record_type": "object", "conservation_statement": null, "has_conservation_images": false, "cover_accession_number": null, "is_nazi_era_provenance": false, "impression": null, "alternate_titles": [], "is_highlight": false, "updated_at": "2026-03-27 00:10:38.080000" } }