
Asking What Art Can Do Is Not the Same as Knowing
The Annual Harvey Buchanan Lecture
- Lecture
- Tickets Required
Speaker: Darby English, Carl Darling Buck Professor of Art History, University of Chicago
John C. and Sally S. Morley Family Foundation Lecture Hall

Artist’s Life #1, 1939. Hughie Lee-Smith (American, 1915–1999). Lithograph; image: 32.2 x 25.5 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Created by the Federal Art Project, Works Progress Administration, and lent by the Fine Arts Collection of the US General Services Administration, 4230.1942. © Estate of Hughie Lee-Smith / Licensed by VAGA at ARS (Artists Rights Society), New York
About The Event
Hindsight suggests that Karamu House offered people—from children to professional artists—a space for asking what art can do. Was Karamu aware of the profound, affirming difference between asking what art can do and, say, knowing what art does and just doing it? In reply to this question, this talk argues “Yes,” chiefly by reference to the work of children, Hughie Lee-Smith, and another one-time Clevelander, Noah Purifoy.
This lecture is cosponsored by the Department of Art History and Art at Case Western Reserve University.
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