Day 09: Elizabeth Catlett
Though her undergraduate degree was in painting, Catlett is best known as a sculptor and printmaker. Her work is very stylized with fractured planes and abstracted human figures. It is clearly influenced by African and Mexican art techniques. Catlett frequently portrayed black women in her work and explored the theme of “mother and child” in many of her pieces. She also made art depicting activists and political movements.
Institutions such as the Studio Museum Harlem, the Metropolitan Museum, the Hammer Museum, and even the US Library of Congress hold Catlett’s art in their collections. She has received honorary doctorates from Carnegie Mellon and Pace University. She has also been the recipient of honors such as admission to the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana.
Consciously or unconsciously, every sculptor produces work for an audience he hopes to reach. With me, it is black people and Mexican people And not necessarily those with art education. I always hope that the emotional and symbolic content of my work will produce a response from everyone who sees it, particularly people in these two groups.”Catlett in a 1976 interview with Luba Glade
