Mother and Child
1 2016-08-12T22:25:34-07:00 Jazmin 2ccdcf90af4ab5fdaa8e71351111ca2dc9435e12 9878 1 Elizabeth Catlett (Mexican (born United States), Washington, D.C. 1915–2012 Cuernavaca) plain 2016-08-12T22:25:34-07:00 The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1944 Image 1999.529.34 Lithograph Jazmin 2ccdcf90af4ab5fdaa8e71351111ca2dc9435e12This page has tags:
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Day 09: Elizabeth Catlett
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Illustrious artist Elizabeth Catlett was born on April 15, 1915 in Washington, DC. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Howard University in 1935. After finishing the University of Iowa’s Master of Fine Arts program in 1940, Catlett became chair of the Art Department at Dillard University. During her tenure at Dillard she also attended ceramics courses at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1946 Catlett received a Rosenwald Fund Fellowship to study in Mexico. While abroad she joined the Taller de Grafica Popular, an artist collective based in Mexico City. The group focused on political printmaking and attracted activist artists from around the world. Catlett’s political activism while in Mexico got her jailed and ultimately barred from reentering the United States. She responded to this by renouncing her US citizenship and becoming a citizen of Mexico in 1962. Catlett would go on to regain US citizenship in 2002.
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
