Throughout her long career as a sculptor, painter, and printmaker, Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012) celebrated and memorialized Black people—especially Black women. After becoming the first woman to earn a master’s degree in sculpture from the University of Iowa, she eventually received a grant to produce a body of work focusing on Black women. She moved to Mexico as a guest artist at a printmaking collective that used linoleum prints and woodcuts to create didactic sociopolitical art.
Her philosophy was that “art should come from the people and be for the people.” Catlett’s tenacious vision and work ethic helped to shape the aesthetics of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s even though the U.S. government deemed her an “undesirable alien,” making her unable to permanently return to the United States until 2002.
Michele L. Simms-Burton, a former professor of African American studies, examines how Catlett’s respect and love for African Americans and Mexicans created a freedom of expression that places her among the most formidable artists of the 20th century. She explores both well-known works such as “Gossip” and less familiar oil paintings.
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