No hay escuela (There is no school)

No hay escuela (There is no school)

Elizabeth S. Catlett

1962

Linocut on paper
Artist’s proof
Signed, titled, dated and numbered AP 1

Catlett received a Rosenwald fellowship in 1946 to study sculpture and to make prints at the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People's Graphic Arts Workshop) in Mexico City. The TGP was a community of activist artists dedicated to creating inexpensive, accessible art in support of and for the masses. There, she produced her "Negro Woman" series of fifteen linocuts (later "Black Woman"), an epic commemoration of the historic oppression, resistance, and survival of African American women. She repeated images from this series in later works, including To marry and Malcolm X speaks for us.

Many of her prints done at TGP highlighted the need for literacy and education among the poor. Catlett completed the linocut No hay escuela (There Is no school) in 1962, the year she became a Mexican citizen. Because of her activism and socialist leanings, Catlett was barred from re-entering the United States. Although exiled, she continued to produce art that transcended national borders, exploring personal connections between African American and Indigenous Mexican peoples.

Museum Purchase made possible in part by a generous gift from Jane Joel Knox, 2020.30.3