Elizabeth Catlett: dean of women artists - Black- and Mexican-influenced art

Ebony, April, 1993 by Lynn Norment

WHEN studying or simply enjoying Elizabeth Catlett's art, one is confronted with several powerful impressions: The sculptures are imposing but elegant, the prints stark but striking.

Even art lovers who don't know the artist recognize her work, for Catlett's sculptures have been an integral part of the American art scene since 1941. In that year the young graduate student won first prize for sculpture at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago with her Mother and Child marble creation. Since that auspicious start, Elizabeth Catlett has proven herself a prolific, dedicated and driven artist and, consequently, has carved a niche for herself as a premiere female African-American sculptor and print maker.

Whether she works with cedar, mahogany, eucalyptus, marble, limestone, onyx, bronze or Mexican stone, the resulting figures, large or small, are consistently dramatic, graceful and "weighty," as art historian James Grimes called her work. And though her creations are prized by collectors and museums, Catlett is dedicated to public art. Among her works on public display is a 10-foot bronze sculpture of Louis Armstrong in New Orleans. She feels strongly that art should be more accessible to students and minorities. "I want public art to have meaning for Black people," she says, "so that they will have some art they can identify with, so they will be encouraged to explore what the museums and galleries have to offer."

Catlett's recurring mother-and-child theme has become a trademark for the mother of three sons (an artist, a jazz musician and a film maker) and grandmother of eight. From her home/studio in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Catlett says she likes the "challenge" presented by the "technical problem, the relationship between the two figures. And it's an emotional thing for me because I am a mother," she adds.

Catlett's striking solo female images, in print and sculpture, also have become renowned. Notable among them are the 1980s prints Virginia, Cartas and Celie, which was commissioned for the movie, The Color Purple. And then there are the magnificent sculptures: the regal cedar Black Flag (1970), bronze Seated Figure (1979), curvaceous orange marble Torso (1974), emphatic walnut Pregnancy (1970), mahogany Seated Woman (1962), and militant cedar Homage to My Young Black Sisters (1968).

"I have nothing against men but, since am a woman, I know more about women and I know how they feel," she says in artist/author Samella Lewis' book about her life and work. "I think there is a need to express something about the working class Black woman and that's what I do ... I like to interpret women's ideas, women's feeling. The female estheticism is more sensitive, and I'm happy to be a part of it."

Elizabeth Catlett was born on April 15, 1919, in Washington, D. C. Her father died before she was born, leaving her mother to support three children. Even as a child, Catlett wanted to be an artist. After studying art at Howard University, she attended graduate school at the University of Iowa, where she studied with painter Grant Wood and roomed with longtime friends Margaret Burroughs, artist and Chicago DuSable Museum founder, and celebrated author Margaret Walker.

Catlett studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and worked at the South Side Community Art Center with other WPA artists. There she met artist Charles White, to whom she was married for six years.

In 1947, Catlett married Mexican artist Francisco Mora, whom she had met while in Mexico working at the Taller de Grafica Popular, a populist artist workshop. She started a family and eventually was appointed head of sculpture at the National University of Mexico in 1959. In 1962 she became a naturalized citizen of her adopted country

Early on, Elizabeth Catlett rebelled against injustice, and that spirit is reflected in her work over the years. As a teen she overheard officials at a prestigious art school praise her work, then add "too bad she's colored" before rejecting her application. When a student at Howard, she stood in front of the Supreme Court building with a hangman's noose around her neck to protest lynchings. While a young teacher, she protested the practice of paying Black teachers half the salary of Whites. Catlett became known for her work in civil, human and labor rights.

When she moved to Mexico, Catlett and her politics became victims of McCarthysim Red-baiters, who successfully barred her from entering the U. S. for several years.

But Catlett's fiery spirit prevailed, as does her art, which continues to reflect African and Mexican influences. Though now in her mid-'70s and despite annoying arthritis, she continues to create with fervor. This May, new sculptures will be exhibited in New York. And her works are featured in a limited edition, oversized book illustrating Margaret Walker's For My People.

"Art can't be the exclusive domain of the [elite]. It belongs to everyone," she says. "Artists should work to the end that love, peace, justice and equal opportunity prevail all over the world."