Elizabeth Catlett at June Kelly and the Neuberger Museum

Art in America, Sept, 1998 by Jonathan Goodman

Now in her 80s, the African-American artist Elizabeth Catlett has been making powerfully affecting, politically committed figurative sculpture for many decades. Starting with an inspired combination of African and pre-Columbian influences, she added classic modernist form and the political vision of the Mexican muralists (she has lived in Mexico since 1947). The result is an art both compositionally striking and demonstrative of larger social concerns.

The 50-year retrospective (1946-96) at the Neuberger Museum comprised 60 sculptures in a broad range of materials: bronze, terra-cotta, marble, stone and a range of woods such as mahogany, pecan and cedar. This diversity demonstrates Catlett's interest in the physical specifics of sculpture; her wood carvings, for example, are polished to bring out the highlights as well as the grain. In her surfaces and in her predilection for gently curving contours, the artist maintains a dialogue with modernist sculptors such as Henry Moore and Ossip Zadkine.

Catlett chose from the beginning to concentrate on a few broad themes: the persistence of injustice, black women as figures of physical and metaphysical strength, relations between mother and child. Even in the earliest works, such as Tired (1946), a red terra-cotta depiction of an exhausted young woman seated, we see Catlett's recognition of interior strength. She portrays the African-American female as possessing an indomitable fortitude and dignity in the face of indifference and worse; both her large cast-stone Mujer Reclinada (Reclining Woman), 1958, and the small, resonantly lyric Pensive (1963) evidence her feeling that women exemplify endurance. Two later pieces, both titled Nude Torso (1987 and 1994), show her considerable ability in abstracting the human body; heavy thighs and breasts become rounded, evocative forms radiating sensuality and strength.

In the seven recent sculptures at June Kelly, Catlett continues to elucidate her chosen themes. Elvira, an arresting terra-cotta head with hollow slits for eyes, looks back to Young Girl, done more than 50 years earlier. Star Gazer, a black marble reclining figure, shares a dreamy, voluptuous repose with Mujer Reclinada and the 1955 bronze titled Reclining Female Nude.

The two shows, along with a selection of prints and drawings at Ellen Sragow Gallery, made it clear that Catlett is an artist of striking accomplishment, whose skill and resolve have not flagged in more than half a century.