Elizabeth Catlett

Biography

(American, b. 1915 - d. 2012)

“I have always wanted my art to service my people—to reflect us, to relate to us, to stimulate us, to make us aware of our potential,” Elizabeth Catlett has said. Celebrated for her prints and sculptures, Catlett employed formal devices that expressed her civic and social interests, particularly the Civil Rights movement. The artist divided her time between Mexico and the United States, a lifestyle that informed not only her politics but also her approach to form and printmaking. The granddaughter of slaves, Elizabeth Catlett was born into a middle-class Washington, D.C. family on April 15, 1915. She attended Howard University, and was the first to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the University of Iowa. Her sculptures and prints celebrate not only famous African Americans like Harriet Tubman and Malcolm X, but also anonymous workers, as in ""Sharecropper"" and "Survivor," and her "The Negro Woman" series. Catlett died on April 2, 2012, at the age of 96, in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Her work is represented in many collections including The Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, MOMA, NYC and MOMA, Mexico, the Library of Congress, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.