Cleveland Museum of Art

Porgy

Richard Beatty

Date

1929

Medium

lithograph

Culture

America, Ohio, Cleveland

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

For his skill in lithographs such as this, Richard Beatty was hired as an instructor when Karamu formed a graphic arts program around 1933. While teaching himself lithography at night, Beatty portrayed theater and cabaret scenes using dense, expressive lines from a waxy crayon. He described Porgy (1927) as his favorite print and was inspired after seeing a play by the same name at the Ohio Theatre. Elongated and slumping figures convey the narrative’s emotional climax, about a man’s attempts to rescue his love from her violent partner. The performance featured an entirely Black cast—unusual for the time—and opened to great acclaim in Cleveland in 1929. After opening on Broadway to popular acclaim in 1927, Porgy toured the United States and Europe for the next two years.

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