Elizabeth Catlett, born as Alice Elizabeth Catlett, also known as Elizabeth Catlett Mora (April 15, 1915 – April 2, 2012) was an American and Mexican sculptor and graphic artist best known for her depictions of the Black-American experience in the 20th century, which often focused on the female experience. She was born and raised in Washington, D.C., to parents working in education, and was the grandchild of formerly enslaved people. It was difficult for a black woman then to pursue a career as a working artist. Catlett devoted much of her career to teaching. However, a fellowship awarded to her in 1946 allowed her to travel to Mexico City, where she settled and worked with the Taller de Gráfica Popular for twenty years and became head of the sculpture department for the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas. In the 1950s, her main means of artistic expression shifted from print to sculpture, though she never gave up the former.
Her work is a mixture of abstract and figurative in the Modernist tradition, with influence from African and Mexican art traditions. Catlett's work can be described as social realism because of her dedication to the issues and experiences of African Americans. According to the artist, the primary purpose of her work is to convey social messages rather than pure aesthetics. Her work is heavily studied by art students who want to depict race, gender, and class issues. During her lifetime, Catlett received many awards and recognitions, including membership in the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana, the Art Institute of Chicago Legends and Legacy Award, honorary doctorates from Pace University and Carnegie Mellon, and the International Sculpture Center's Lifetime Achievement Award in contemporary sculpture.
Catlett was born and raised in Washington, D.C. Both of her parents were the children of formerly enslaved people; her grandmother told her stories about the capture of their people in Africa and the hardships of plantation life. Catlett was the youngest of three children. Her parents worked in education; her mother was an attendance officer; her father taught math at Tuskegee University, then the D.C. public school system. Her father died before she was born, leaving her mother to hold several jobs to support the household.
Catlett's interest in art began early. As a child, she became fascinated by a wood carving of a bird that her father made. In high school, she studied art with a descendant of Frederick Douglass, Haley Douglass.
Catlett completed her undergraduate studies at Howard University, graduating cum laude, although it was not her first choice. She was also admitted into the Carnegie Institute of Technology but was refused admission when the school discovered she was black. However, in 2007 Tyra Butler, board member of the August Wilson Center for African American Culture in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, invited E&S Gallery to do an exhibition featuring the art of prominent African-American artists in partnership with the August Wilson Center. Cathy Shannon, Chief Curator with E&S Gallery was giving a talk to a youth group in conjunction with the exhibition and recounted Catlett's tie to Pittsburgh because of this injustice. A Carnegie Mellon University administrator, Robbie Baker Kosak, attended as a guest of Tyra Butler and heard the story for the first time. The Dean of the College of Fine Arts, Hilary Robinson, also saw an account of the refusal in an exhibition of Black artists in downtown Pittsburgh. They both told the story to the school's president, Jared Leigh Cohon, who was also unaware and deeply appalled that such a thing had happened. In 2008, Ms. Butler asked E&S to inform Mrs. Catlett that President Cohon wanted to present Catlett with an honorary doctorate and a solo exhibition. E&S Gallery presented a one-woman show of her art at the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University. Tyra Butler, Stephanie and Michael Jasper, Claudette Lewis, and Yvonne Cook published and produced a catalog of Catlett's work, introduced by Dean Robinson, in conjunction with the exhibition.
At Howard University, Catlett's professors included artist Lois Mailou Jones and philosopher Alain Locke. She also came to know artist James Herring and future art historian James A. Porter. Her tuition was paid for by her mother's savings and scholarships that the artist earned, and she graduated with honors in 1937. At the time, the idea of a career as an artist was far-fetched for a black woman, so she completed her undergraduate studies intending to be a teacher. After graduation, she moved to her mother's hometown of Durham, North Carolina, to teach art at Hillside High School.
Catlett became interested in the work of American painter Grant Wood, so she entered the graduate program where he taught at the University of Iowa. There, she studied drawing and painting with Wood, as well as sculpture with Harry Edward Stinson. Wood advised her to depict images of what she knew best, so Catlett began sculpting images of African-American women and children. However, despite being accepted to the school, she was not permitted to stay in the dormitories; therefore, she rented a room off-campus. One of her roommates was future novelist and poet Margaret Walker. Catlett graduated in 1940, one of three to earn the first Master in Fine Arts from the university, and the first African-American woman to receive the degree.
After Iowa, Catlett moved to New Orleans to work at Dillard University, spending the summer breaks in Chicago. During her summers, she studied ceramics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and lithography at the South Side Community Art Center. In Chicago, she also met her first husband, artist Charles Wilbert White. The couple married in 1941. In 1942, the couple moved to New York, where Catlett taught adult education classes at the George Washington Carver School in Harlem. She also studied lithography at the Art Students League of New York; she received private instruction from Russian sculptor Ossip Zadkine, who urged her to add abstract elements to her figurative work. During her time in New York, she met intellectuals and artists such as Gwendolyn Bennett, W. E. B. Dubois, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Jacob Lawrence, Aaron Douglas, and Paul Robeson.
In 1946, Catlett received a Rosenwald Fund Fellowship to travel with her husband to Mexico and study. She accepted the grant partly because American art was trending toward the abstract while she was interested in art related to social themes. Shortly after moving to Mexico that same year, Catlett divorced White. In 1947, Catlett entered the Taller de Gráfica Popular, a workshop dedicated to prints promoting leftist social causes and education. There, she met printmaker and muralist Francisco Mora, whom she married later that same year. The couple had three children, all of whom developed careers in the arts: Francisco Mora Catlett in jazz music, Juan Mora Catlett in filmmaking, and David Mora Catlett in the visual arts. The last worked as his mother's assistant, performing the more labor-intensive aspects of sculpting when she was no longer able. In 1948, she entered the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda" to study wood sculpture with José L. Ruíz and ceramic sculpture with Francisco Zúñiga. During this time in Mexico, she became more serious about her art and more dedicated to the work it demanded. She also met Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
In 2006, Kathleen Edwards, the curator of European and American art for the University of Iowa Museum of Art (UIMA), visited Catlett in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and purchased a group of 27 prints. Catlett donated this money to the University of Iowa Foundation to fund the Elizabeth Catlett Mora Scholarship Fund, which supports African-American and Latino students studying printmaking. Elizabeth Catlett Residence Hall on the University of Iowa campus is named in her honor.
Catlett worked with the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP) from 1946 until 1966. However, because some of the members were also Communist party members, and because of her activism regarding a railroad strike in Mexico City leading to an arrest in 1949, Catlett came under surveillance by the United States Embassy. Eventually, she was barred from entering the United States and declared an "undesirable alien". She was unable to return home to visit her ill mother before she died. In 1962, Catlett renounced her American citizenship and became a Mexican citizen.