Catlett, Elizabeth
1915-2012 · Contribution: 1940s-2000s
Sculpture and printmaking (linocuts, lithographs, woodcuts) centered on the Black-American and Mexican working-class experience, especially the strength of Black women; works include 'Sharecropper,' the 'Negro Woman' series, and 'Homage to My Young Black Sisters'
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Impact on the world
First student to earn an MFA in sculpture at the University of Iowa (1940); a leading social-realist printmaker through Mexico's Taller de Grafica Popular and the first woman to head the sculpture department at the National School of Fine Arts (UNAM). A defining figure of 20th-century Black art.
Life & background
American-born Mexican artist born Alice Elizabeth Catlett on April 15, 1915 in Washington, DC, a granddaughter of enslaved people; studied at Howard University. Moved to Mexico in 1946; for her activism she was barred from the U.S. as an 'undesirable alien' for years. Died April 2, 2012 in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
Sources
- Encyclopædia Britannica; National Gallery of Art; Art Institute of Chicago
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