Biography

Elizabeth Catlett has been named one of the foremost African American artists of the 20^th century.¹ A sculptor and printmaker, Catlett’s art often conveyed political messages that manifested her dedication to issues relating to class, maternity, and racial and sexual equality.² Catlett was awarded a Rosenwald fellowship in 1945 and it was during her fellowship renewal in 1946 that she decided to continue her career in Mexico to pursue the fusion of art and politics. While she continuec to prioritize depictions of African American experiences through her art, this relocation brought an important international perspective to her work.³

Elizabeth Catlett began making a name for herself as an artist in the decade that she applied for a Rosenwald fellowship. In 1940, she became the first student to complete a Masters of Fine Arts at the University of Iowa, where she studied with Grant Wood and Ossip Zadkine.⁴ In the same year, she became chair of the Art Department at Dillard University in New Orleans and was given a first-place award in sculpture at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago.⁵

In 1943, Catlett applied for a Rosenwald fellowship and was rejected. When she reapplied for a fellowship in 1945, her shift in approach marked a turn toward the Black female subject. That year, Catlett was awarded a fellowship in the amount of $1,800 to complete a “series of lithographs, paintings, and sculptures on the role of the Negro woman in the fight for democratic rights in the history of America.” She details the project in her 1945 "Plan of Work":

“Negro women in America have long suffered under the double handicap of race and sex. Because of subtle American propaganda in the movies, radio and stage, they have come to be generally regarded as good cooks, housemaids and nurses and little else. At this time when we are fighting an all out war against tyranny and oppression it is extremely important that the picture of Negro women as participants in this fight, throughout the history of America, be sharply drawn.”⁶

American society, Catlett claimed, was in need of sculptures that were not simply “busts,” but that carried deeper messages for their audience.

Catlett accepted the fellowship in April of 1945. In May, she travelled to Mexico with her husband at the time, Charles White, who was also a Rosenwald fellow.⁷ During her fellowship year, Catlett and White also travelled to the American South, where they participated in the fight against segregation.

Catlett's request for a fellowship renewal in 1946 was accepted by the committee, and the artist was awarded an additional $2,484. With these funds, she traveled back to Mexico to work with the Taller de Gráfica Popular alongside artists such as David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera in order to further understand their approach to art as a social and political form of expression. 

The "I Am the Black Woman" series was the groundbreaking result of Catlett's two-year fellowship period in Mexico and the US. Originally titled as “I am the Negro Woman” and retitled in 1989, this linoleum cut series demonstrates the themes of justice and women’s rights in her work, and portrays African American women's determination to persevere despite the odds.⁸ Because of its singular contribution to African American art history, this series brought Catlett more permanently into the art historical discourse of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. 

In a handwritten letter to William C. Haygood, a member of the Rosenwald Committee, on January 3, 1946, Catlett wrote of the joy of being able to invest fully in her creative work:

“This is really the first time in my life that I have had time and opportunity to just do sculpture and painting. [...] I am positive that I am doing the most creative works that I ever did in my life. Any success that I may have will certainly be greatly due to this opportunity of a year to work given me by the Rosenwald Fund.”⁹

In another letter to the Rosenwald Fund dated October 1946, Catlett expressed a need for the renewal funds to be expedited: she and Charles White had separated and she was in need of finances to support a change of domicile. The fund agreed and Catlett started a new phase of her life in Mexico. After her two-year stint as a Rosenwald fellow, Catlett stayed in Mexico and eventually married the Mexican painter and engraver Francisco Mora. In 1958, Catlett became the first female professor in the sculpture department at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. After officially obtaining Mexican citizenship in 1962, the U.S. government identified Catlett as an “undesirable alien” and barred the artist from visiting the United States for several years. By a twist of fate, this rejection allowed her to increase her political activism, and resulted in a trip to Cuba to participate in the Congress of Women in the Americas, which served Mexican women of the middle and lower classes.¹⁰

Beyond creating art with political messages, Catlett also participated directly in social justice movements throughout her life. As a young woman in the United States, she participated in anti-lynching demonstrations and later protested segregation, police brutality, and unjust college curriculum as an art professor at Dillard University.¹¹ Catlett also fought for social justice through the written word. Her published writings throughout the 1940s highlighted racial injustice by criticizing the absence of Black artists and painters in these fields and emphasizing the central role of art in the fight against racism and for democracy.¹² This perspective blossomed in Mexico through her membership with the Taller de Gráfica Popular, which viewed art and politics––specifically, attention to class struggles––as inseparable. Like the Taller, Catlett viewed art as a medium that should be accessible and made for the people.¹³

Catlett’s work, especially her “I Am the Black Woman” linocut series, continues to draw increasing attention from feminist and postcolonial art historians.¹⁴ This exhibit pays tribute to Elizabeth Catlett’s growing legacy and her commitment to social justice through her artwork and activism. In this portion of the exhibit, viewers will find Catlett’s application forms, handwritten letters, application photos, as well as articles on her artistic achievements.

*Biography research contributed by Traveria L. Evans.

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^{1. Melanie Anne Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett: An American Artist In Mexico (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), 3.↩}

^{1. "Elizabeth Catlett: Artist as Activist," Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, accessed 17 February 2020, https://lewismuseum.org/elizabethcatlett/.↩}

^{3. Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett, 6.↩}

^{4. "Elizabeth Catlett," Smithsonian American Art Museum, accessed 17 February 2020, https://americanart.si.edu/artist/elizabeth-catlett-781.↩}

^{5. Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett, 24.↩}

^{6. Elizabeth Catlett's "Plan of Work" for Rosenwald Scholarship, 1945, Rosenwald Collection, Box 400, Folder 7, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library Special Collections, Fisk University.↩}

^{7. White was a designer for Ebony, but got his start with the Rosenwald Fund. Rosenwald, directed by Aviva Kempner (2015, Ciesla Foundation), documentary.↩}

^{8. As she reports in a form distributed by the Rosenwald Fund, during her fellowship period, Catlett produced two oil paintings (“My songs have come straight from the people” and “I till the soil and starve while others fatten”), two sculptures (“Youth gives me beauty” and “Sojourner”), and two lithographs. Report form, 194-, Rosenwald Collection, Box 400, Folder 7, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library Special Collections, Fisk University.↩}

^{9. Letter, Elizabeth Catlett to William C. Haygood, 3 January 1946, Rosenwald Collection, Box 400, Folder 7, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library Special Collections, Fisk University.↩}

^{10. Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett, 109-110.↩}

^{11. Samella Lewis ctd. in Herzog Elizabeth Catlett, 24-5↩}

^{12. Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett, 45-46.↩}

^{13. Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett, 86.↩}

^{14. Margaret Gottwald, "Elizabeth Catlett's I Am the Negro Woman: Emerging from the Margins" (MA Thesis, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2011), https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/216/.↩}