Poster for Murder on Lenox Ave.: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This movie poster depicts a woman lying on the street with a knife in her chest. Wearing a light colored blouse and yellow skirt she lies under a streetlamp in front of a multistoried brick building. At the top margin of the poster in red and white text on a yellow background are the words "MURDER/ ON/ LENOX AVE/ with/ MAMIE SMITH." Beneath these words is a list of cast members. The multistoried brick building rises along the right side of the poster. There are four windows in the building, each with face looking out. At the bottom window is a woman in a red shirt, above her is a woman in a yellow blouse. In the third window is a man in a yellow shirt, and at the top are two men in one window, one of whom wears a striped tie.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1941
• Distributed by: Sack Amusement Enterprises, American, 1920 - 1979
• Subject of: Mamie Smith, American, 1883 - 1946
• Subject of: Alec Lovejoy, American, 1893 - 1946
• Subject of: Norman Astwood, Jamaican, 1902 - 1994
• Subject of: Edna Mae Harris, American, 1910 - 1997
• Subject of: Alberta Perkins, American
• Subject of: Augustus Julius Smith, American, 1891 - 1964
• Subject of: Arthur Dreifuss, German American, 1908 - 1993
• Type: posters
• Medium: ink on paper (fiber product)
• Dimensions: H x W (image): 38 7/8 × 26 in. (98.7 × 66 cm)
• Dimensions: H x W (sheet): 40 7/8 × 27 15/16 in. (103.8 × 71 cm)
• Place filmed: Harlem, New York City, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Film
• Topic: Race films
• Object number: 2013.118.63
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The displayed image also has an explicit CC0 designation. The underlying object's rights statement is: Public domain Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.