{
"data": {
"id": 454851,
"accession_number": "2022.55",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "I've Known Rivers, 1941. William E. Smith (American, 1913\u20131997). Linocut; image: 19.6 x 19.4 cm (7 11/16 x 7 5/8 in.); sheet: 40.6 x 30.4 cm (16 x 11 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Trust, 2022.55. \u00a9 William E. Smith",
"current_location": null,
"title": "I've Known Rivers",
"creation_date": "1941",
"creation_date_earliest": 1941,
"creation_date_latest": 1941,
"artists_tags": [
"Black American Artists",
"May Show",
"male"
],
"culture": [],
"technique": "linocut",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Prints",
"collection": "PR - Linocut",
"type": "Print",
"measurements": "Image: 19.6 x 19.4 cm (7 11/16 x 7 5/8 in.); Sheet: 40.6 x 30.4 cm (16 x 11 15/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.406,
"width": 0.304
},
"image": {
"height": 0.196,
"width": 0.194
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": "50",
"copyright": "\u00a9 William E. Smith",
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Inscribed, lower left margin, in graphite: \u201cI\u2019VE KNOWN RIVERS\u201d; lower right margin, in graphite: Wm. E. Smith \u201c41\u201d / 3/50",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Exhibit by Karamu Artists. Associated American Artists Galleries, New York (January 7\u201322, 1942); Temple University, Philadelphia (February 2\u201316, 1942).",
"opening_date": "1942-01-01T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Lusenhop Fine Art, Cleveland Heights, OH), sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "2022",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "June 6, 2022-",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "This print was included in a 1942 exhibition of Karamu House artists organized at New York\u2019s Associated American Artists Galleries and sponsored by a committee including cultural figures such as Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, and Carl Van Vechten. The show traveled to Philadelphia\u2019s Temple University and brought national attention to the Karamu House printmaking workshop.",
"description": "In this composition, which features a man reflecting on a shore, William E. Smith imagined the narrator of Langston Hughes\u2019s \u201cThe Negro Speaks of Rivers,\u201d who proclaims, \u201cMy soul has grown deep like the rivers.\u201d The poem established Hughes\u2019s reputation as a leading figure within the Harlem Renaissance\u2014a flourishing of Black culture in upper Manhattan\u2014when he wrote it as a teenager, the year after he graduated from Cleveland\u2019s Central High School in 1920. Like many members of Karamu Artists Inc., Smith remained friends with Hughes after they worked together at Karamu House, and the writer later praised Smith\u2019s ability to capture the \u201chumor and pathos\u201d of Black life.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117247193"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Exhibit by Karamu Artists. Exh. Cat. New York: Associated American Artists, 1942.",
"page_number": "",
"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. 51, no. 21",
"url": ""
}
],
"catalogue_raisonne": "Teller 22; Salsbury, Benay, and Kruse 114",
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2022.55",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Severance and Greta Millikin Trust",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 454851,
"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": "2022-06-06T04:00:00Z",
"sortable_date": 1941,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1941",
"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 00:09:59.492000"
}
}