A Celebration of Great African-American Artists of the 20th Century
Elizabeth Catlett
Born in Washington, D.C., Elizabeth Catlett has lived in Mexico since 1947. She attended Howard University School of Art and the University of Iowa, where she studied with American Realist painter Grant Wood. Catlett went on to study ceramics at the Art Institute of Chicago. She first taught art at the George Washington Carver School, an alternative school dedicated to educating the working people of Harlem. Catlett continued teaching as head of the Art Department at Dillard University in New Orleans, and she became the first woman to direct the Sculpture Department at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City.
Affiliation: Dillard University
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On the Subway, 1986 American Realist Grant Wood exhorted his students to paint what they knew. To Elizabeth Catlett, that meant African-American women. Both in her sculptures and in her prints, she seized the opportunity to advance the social position of her peers by depicting strong, independent nurturers. "I wanted to correct the impression," Catlett has said, "that we were either servants or prostitutes." In On the Subway, determination is the subject. The figure's graphically detailed face blends into rich shadow, with the rest of her form indicated in a summary fashion. |
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Selma Burke
Alex Corbbrey
Sam Gilliam
Lois Mailou Jones
Paul F. Keene, Jr.
Gwen Knight-Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence
Samella Lewis
Charles White
Hale Woodruff