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work of the month

Ife, 2002
Elizabeth Catlett, American (b. 1915)
Mahogany
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. by Exchange in honor of Andrew S. Fine
in recognition of his outstanding service as a Museum Trustee and as
Board Chairman, 1999-2002
© Elizabeth Catlett courtesy of June Kelly Gallery, Inc., NY

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Most artists devote their entire career to a particular medium. Pablo Picasso is known for his paintings. Henry Moore is known for his sculptures. Ernest Withers is known for his photographs. And William Morris is known for his work with glass. Elizabeth Catlett has refined her talents as a printmaker, sculptor, and painter and has mastered them all.

"Art must be realistic for me, whether sculpture or printmaking. 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 potentialÄLearning how to do this and passing that learning on to other people have been my goals. I have learned from many people: from the restlessness and inquisitiveness of the young, from my mother, from other people who have struggled to better themselves - from childhood right up to nowÄ."

Elizabeth Catlett appears to have lived an artistic life fearlessly. Denied admission to the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh (now Carnegie Mellon University) because of her race, even though she won a competitive scholarship, she attended Howard University. She received the first Master of Fine Art degree from the University of Iowa in 1940. Catlett was labeled a Communist while providing instruction for laborers in Harlem during the early 1940s. She moved to Mexico City in 1946 and became a citizen there in 1962. After becoming a Mexican citizen, the U.S. State Department deemed her an "undesirable alien" and denied her a visa to the U.S. for almost a decade. By 1958, she became the first female professor of sculpture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In 1993, at the age of 78, she again exhibited in New York City, nearly twenty-two years after her first exhibit there. With pride, she now speaks of her dual citizenship. Today, she remains steadfast in her work which depicts persons of color, their struggles, and triumphs. She remains dedicated to her craft as a painter, a printmaker, and a sculptor.

Throughout her long career as an artist, Elizabeth Catlett credits mentors, instructors, her contemporaries, and social issues as having a profound influence: Grant Wood, Ossip Zadkine, Francisco Zuñiga, artists of the Taller de Grafica Popular, Jose L. Ruiz, Mexican Revolution, Civil Rights, the Black Power Movement, and the Feminist Movement. Each helped to nurture the seed that would blossom and mature within Catlett for nearly ninety years. Regionalist painter and past professor at the University of Iowa, Grant Wood encouraged his students to create works based on what was most familiar to them. A graduate student of Woods', Catlett would rely upon her experiences and familiar themes as her lifelong study. Russian-born artist, Ossip Zadkine introduced Catlett to abstraction, and encouraged its experimentation. As a 1945 recipient of the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship, she challenged herself to create a series of works that focused on black women. In an attempt to complete her fellowship project, she traveled to Mexico in 1946. Her stay introduced her to ceramic sculptor Francisco Zuñiga and artists of the Taller de Grafica Popular. Taller de Grafica Popular (Workshop for Popular Art) was a cooperative print workshop that communicated the social, political, and economic struggles of Mexicans. The Taller created a constructive critique environment and encouraged her artistic philosophy, where her colleagues included Diego Rivera and future husband, Francisco Mora. Jose L. Ruiz introduced and instructed Catlett in woodcarving. Intertwined in her work was the spirit of the Mexican Revolution and of other relevant social movements. Her stylistic approaches included the influence of African sculpture and the Mexican muralists.

Now that you have additional information about Ms.Catlett and the persons/events that have influenced her, can you find any of those influences in the work entitled Ife?

Use Your Investigating Eyes:

• What medium/material was carved to create the sculpture?
• Does the sculpture look realistic or slightly abstract?
• What is Ife?

  a. a city of importance to the Yoruba people of Nigeria, Africa
  b. a people who flourished in the 12th-15th centuries in West Africa
  c. the name of Ms. Catlett's granddaughter
  (The correct answers are a, b, and c.)

• If Ife miraculously stood up and began to speak, what would she say?
• Was the sculpture made from a single block of mahogany? Or, were several small sections used to create this work of art?

Before using her wood working tools, Ms. Catlett begins with an idea and a sketch. To capture realistic proportions, a model is sometimes asked to pose for the initial drawing. On other occasions, a small plaster or clay model is initially created. With care and finesse, she alters the innate appearance of terra cotta, wood, bronze, marble, and stone to communicate strength, dignity, humility, tenacity, and beauty.

- Channon M. Humphrey

RESOURCES

Bearden, Romare and Harry Henderson. A History of African-American Artist: From 1792 to the Present. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993

Lewis, Samella. African American Art and Artist. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1990

Gedeon, Lucinda, ed. Elizabeth Catlett: A Fifty-Year Retrospective. Purchase, New York: Neuberger Museum of Art, 1998.

Gladstone, Valerie. "An Artist For Her People." American Legacy, Winter 2003, 62-70.