The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Vertically oriented black-inked print on white paper with hands reaching up out of clusters of faces of different sizes into a blank upper third, all shapes having a blotted, grainy quality. The largest, bearded face looks out at us from just left of center and with a person leaning forward on their right and crowds of people below them, interspersed with a few additional headshots. Two rows of white barbed wire runs across a black lower edge.

White Terms

1987

Curlee Raven Holton

(American, b. 1951)
America
lithograph
Sheet: 43.2 x 32.9 cm (17 x 12 15/16 in.)
L. E. Holden Fund 2023.168
© Curlee Raven Holton
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Curlee Raven Holton has discussed being drawn to lithography for its physicality, which reminds him of his father’s work as a forger.

Description

Contemporary printmaker Curlee Raven Holton grew up in Cleveland and learned about art by visiting the Cleveland Museum of Art while studying at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Holton went on to study printmaking with the legendary printmaker Robert Blackburn and, later, to found the Experimental Printmaking Institute at Lafayette College. This print was inspired by Holton’s time in Cleveland—specifically an encounter with a visiting activist from South Africa, whose discussion of Apartheid led him to combine Xerox images with drawing on and carving into a lithographic stone to consider race relations through this image.
  • 1969–2023
    Curlee Raven Holton (the artist) [1951–], sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    December 4, 2023–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Benay, Erin. "A Conversation with Karamu House Alumnus Curlee Raven Holton." In Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community, Britany Salsbury and Erin Benay, 124-129. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2025. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 127-128, no. 60
  • Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 23-August 17, 2025).
  • {{cite web|title=White Terms|url=false|author=Curlee Raven Holton|year=1987|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2023.168