The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of May 31, 2026

A vertically oriented print depicts a face in swirling fragments of black, bright red, orange, and yellow, looking up. Their Afro and upper edge of their forehead extends just off the page. A solid medium-dark purple shows through the lower right corner and in fragments on the face. White writing is scrawled on a black strip continuing the lower edge of the neck.

Primal Force

1975

Nelson Stevens

(American, 1938–2022)
America
color screenprint
Sheet: 74.1 x 55 cm (29 3/16 x 21 5/8 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 2024.86
© artist or artist's estate
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Nelson Stevens worked as an arts educator at the Cleveland Museum of Art during the late 1960s.

Description

Nelson Stevens spent formative years of his artistic career at Karamu House before joining AfriCOBRA, a Chicago-based art collective whose goal was Black empowerment. As an instructor of drawing and design at Karamu and a gallery lecturer at the CMA during the late 1960s, Stevens promoted an artistic style that he saw as characteristic of and appealing to Black Americans, using bright colors and repetitive lines and forms to depict the human figure. He originally printed the image seen here alongside the word “uhuru,” which means “freedom” in the Swahili language.
  • September 9, 2024–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Benay, Erin. "From Prints to Power: Karamu House and the Black Art Market in Cleveland, 1960-1980." In Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community, Britany Salsbury and Erin Benay, 102-117. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2025. Reproduced: p. 109, no. 53
  • Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 23-August 17, 2025).
  • {{cite web|title=Primal Force|url=false|author=Nelson Stevens|year=1975|access-date=31 May 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2024.86