Activism
Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012),
While she would not have hesitated to remind us that art alone cannot change the world, Elizabeth Catlett firmly believed that art can raise consciousness of injustice, expose abuses of power, and illuminate possibilities for social transformation.
Melanie Herzog, biographer, elizabethcatlettart.com
Chile I, 1980
Linocut
Signed, titled, dated and numbered 7/20
Loaned by Sragow Gallery (Ellen Sragow, Ltd), New York, New York
As a social justice activist, Catlett found in the TGP kindred spirits. There, she became one of only two women members, met and married fellow artist Francisco Mora (1922-2002), and raised three sons. As members of the TGP, they worked until 1966 to produce posters and prints that exposed the struggles of the working class. Despite leaving the workshop, Catlett continued to use her art for political justice with an expanded Pan-American view. This 1980 linocut aptly describes the hardened lines in a Chilean woman’s worn face and speaks to the oppression of the Latin American country during the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
Malcolm X speaks for us, 1969-2004
Color linoleum cut
Signed, titled, dated and numbered 9/60
Museum Purchase, 2021.10.1
By the 1960s, Catlett’s work also reflected her support of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in the US. The print Malcolm X speaks for us was completed four years after the human rights activist was assassinated in 1965. It is, in part, an homage to the leadership and message of Malcolm X. However, upon closer examination, one notes that Catlett places the man’s recognizable portrait in the midst of an array of anonymous faces of Black women, reminding her viewers that Black women were active participants in movements for Black liberation, although they are often erased from mainstream narratives about the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. The series of faces across the top is a reprisal of her relief print I am the Negro Woman, made in 1947 at the Taller de Gráfica Popular as part of her Negro Woman (Black Woman) series. This large print also begins to incorporate color, an aspect that will increase in her later work; she reprinted it in 2004.
The door of justice, 2000
Color lithograph
Signed, titled, dated and numbered 69/100
Blind stamp: Printed by J K Fine Art Editions Co., New York
Loaned by Sragow Gallery (Ellen Sragow, Ltd), New York, New York
Incorporating brighter colors, this later print by Catlett is enigmatic and has provoked discussion about its meaning. Its composition is bisected. At left, an African American couple holds a door: Are they opening or closing it? At the right, ten people of varying generations, cultures, and genders are clustered at the doorway. Art historian Mey-Yen Moriuchi at La Salle University believes “This thought-provoking image perhaps reflects the position that America’s ‘melting pot’ is growing but our acceptance of difference still faces solid barriers. I believe Catlett understood this tension, having experienced it firsthand in the United States and Mexico. The image seems to pictorialize Catlett’s recognition that a more inclusive, transnational world will be fraught with constant setbacks; a situation that certainly resonates today.”
What do you see in this print?