MAN, Signed Woodcut, Indigenous Portrait Head, Mexican Culture
View Similar Items
Elizabeth CatlettMAN, Signed Woodcut, Indigenous Portrait Head, Mexican Culture2003
2003
About the Item
- Creator:Elizabeth Catlett (1915 - 2012, American)
- Creation Year:2003
- Dimensions:Height: 26 in (66.04 cm)Width: 17.75 in (45.09 cm)
- More Editions & Sizes:Edition 250Price: $1,250
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Mint condition, never been framed or mounted, pencil signed, titled, dated Printers Proof aside from the numbered edition of 250 printed in 2003, print documentation provided.
- Gallery Location:Union City, NJ
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU83236917312
Elizabeth Catlett
Promoting social change was Elizabeth Catlett’s prime motivation as an artist. The granddaughter of enslaved people, Catlett was born in Washington, D.C., in 1915 and spent her adult life driven to create sculptures, prints and paintings that would reach, celebrate and uplift those who were barely visible in art.
“I have always wanted my art to service Black people — to reflect us, to relate to us, to stimulate us, to make us aware of our potential,” Catlett said of her work in the 1978 book Art: African American. She studied art history, drawing and other disciplines at Howard University, and as an MFA student at the University of Iowa, her mentor, the painter Grant Wood, advised her to “take as her subject what she knew best.” As she later told an interviewer, “The thing that I knew the most about was Black women, because I am one, and I lived with them all my life, so that’s what I started working with.”
The centerpiece of Catlett’s spring 1940 thesis project, Negro Mother and Child — a figure of a Black mother embracing her child, carved from Indiana limestone — was awarded first place for sculpture at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago held that year.
Catlett taught art at Dillard University in New Orleans — where she battled discrimination daily — and met her first husband, artist Charles White, while living in Chicago. She resigned from Dillard in 1942 and moved to New York City. There Catlett befriended painter Jacob Lawrence and studied lithography and other media at the Art Students League. Inspired by her studies with Ossip Zadkine, she began to incorporate abstract forms into her wood and stone sculptures.
In 1946, a grant supported her travel to Mexico to study its murals and graphic art. As Catlett had experienced the barbaric and deeply destructive system of racial segregation that the Jim Crow laws enforced in the United States, Mexico felt like a welcome escape. She would make the country her home and create much of her work there, divorcing White and marrying painter and printmaker Francisco Mora of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People's Graphic Workshop), or TGP, in 1947. She collaborated with TGP, a graphic arts workshop dedicated to social issues located in Mexico City, on a number of works, including one of her best-known linoleum cut prints, Sharecropper (1952). The heroic depiction of an anonymous farm worker was intended to draw attention to the plight of Black tenant farmers who were ruthlessly exploited by the era’s white landowners.
Another iconic work of Catlett’s is Black Unity (1968), a raised fist sculpted from cedar, smooth and gleaming, with one side taking the form of two faces that resemble carved African masks. In the same year, the raised fist, a powerful symbol of the Civil Rights struggle and emblem of the Black Power movement, had been immortalized by two Black American athletes, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, who raised their black-gloved fists during the playing of the “Star-Spangled Banner” at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
Catlett was a professor of sculpture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s School of Fine Arts in Mexico City from 1958 until 1976, when she retired to focus on making art, exhibiting extensively in the years that followed. In 2003, she completed the Ralph Ellison Memorial in New York’s Riverside Park. That same year she received a lifetime achievement award from the International Sculpture Center. Her work is in the collections of museums worldwide, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Find a range of authentic Elizabeth Catlett art today on 1stDibs.
- FLOWERS Signed Woodcut Young Woman Hoop Earring Tropical Floral Dress, WoodgrainBy Otto NealsLocated in Union City, NJFLOWERS is an original limited edition woodcut print by the African-American painter and sculptor, Otto Neals. The woodblock used to print FLOWERS was hand carved by Otto Neals and printed in two colors - burnt orange and black on Rives BFK printmaking paper, 100% acid free, enhanced with hand colored accents. FLOWERS portrays an exotic portrait of a young black woman posed in profile with long dark wavy hair, looking downward wearing a lively floral print dress and large silver hoop earrings...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Prints
MaterialsWoodcut
- MAN Signed Woodcut, Face Portrait, Paper-Doll Cutout People, Mexican CultureBy Elizabeth CatlettLocated in Union City, NJMAN is a hand pulled, original limited edition relief print created using woodcut and serigraphy(silkscreen) printmaking techniques on white archival heavyweight paper, 100% acid free. Pencil signed, titled and dated in pencil on lower margin by Elizabeth Catlett, embossed with printers chop mark lower left, print documentation provided. MAN is an impactful portrait head woodcut depicting an indigenous Mexican male face carved by the renowned American and Mexican woman printmaker and sculptor, Elizabeth Catlett. Strong impression printed in rich black ink on white paper with a row of paper doll like cutout people silkscreened printed in gradient shades of yellow, orange, and brown beneath the Man's head, reminiscent of Mexican folk art paper-cutting, Artist: Catlett, Elizabeth (1915-2012) Title: Man Date: 1975, printed 2003 Medium: woodcut and color silkscreen Dimensions: 26 x 17.75 inches (paper size) Edition: 250 published by the Print Club of Cleveland, number 83, 2005 About the artist - Elizabeth Catlett graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1935, where she studied under a number of notable artists, including Lois Maillou Jones...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Prints
MaterialsWoodcut
- THERE IS A WOMAN IN EVERY COLOR Signed Relief Print, Black Woman Rainbow FiguresBy Elizabeth CatlettLocated in Union City, NJTHERE IS A WOMAN IN EVERY COLOR is a hand pulled limited edition relief print created using linocut, woodcut, and silkscreen printmaking techniques on white archival printmaking pape...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Prints
MaterialsLinocut
- FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION Signed Lithograph, Children Jewish HolocaustBy Chaim GrossLocated in Union City, NJFROM GENERATION TO GENERATION is a fine art limited edition commemorative poster by the American artist/sculptor Chaim Gross. FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION was printed using four col...Category
1980s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- BREAD (Derecho Alimentarse) Signed Linocut, Mexican Girl with Braided HairBy Elizabeth CatlettLocated in Union City, NJBREAD (Derecho Alimentarse) The Right To Eat, created by the African-American woman printmaker and sculptor, Elizabeth Catlett. BREAD is a realistic linoleum cut portrait depicting a young Mexican girl...Category
1960s Contemporary Portrait Prints
MaterialsLinocut
- BOPPING AT BIRDLAND (STOMP TIME) Signed Lithograph, Abstract Jazz Portrait, SaxBy Romare BeardenLocated in Union City, NJBOPPING AT BIRDLAND(STOMP TIME) is a limited edition color lithograph printed using traditional hand lithography methods on archival Somerset printmaking paper, 100% acid free, in an edition size of 175 by the renowned African American artist Romare Bearden. A semi-abstract multicolor print in shades of red, yellow, blue, green, pink beige, white, gray and black - BOPPING AT BIRDLAND(STOMP TIME) is a lively jazz portrait...Category
1970s Contemporary Portrait Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Lord on the Sand Castle - XX century Black & White Woodcut PrintBy Franciszek BunschLocated in Warsaw, PLIllustration for Jules de la Medelen's "Lord on the Sand Castle" ("Le Marquis Des Saffras") FRANCISZEK BUNSCH (born in 1926) Franciszek Bunsch was born in Bielsko in 1926. He studie...Category
1950s Contemporary Portrait Prints
MaterialsPaper, Woodcut
- Lord on the Sand Castle - XX century Black & White Woodcut PrintBy Franciszek BunschLocated in Warsaw, PLIllustration for Jules de la Medelen's "Lord on the Sand Castle" ("Le Marquis Des Saffras") FRANCISZEK BUNSCH (born in 1926) Franciszek Bunsch was born in Bielsko in 1926. He studie...Category
1950s Contemporary Portrait Prints
MaterialsPaper, Woodcut
- Ana Cazares, ¨Títere perro¨, 2019, Woodcut, 44.1x29.9 inLocated in Miami, FLAna Cazares (Mexico, ) 'Títere perro', 2019 woodcut on paper Guarro Biblos 250g. 44.1 x 30 in. (112 x 76 cm.) Edition of 3 ID: CAZ-102Category
2010s Contemporary Portrait Prints
MaterialsPaper, Woodcut
- Ana Cazares, ¨Lengua afuera¨, 2019, Woodcut, 44.1x29.9 inLocated in Miami, FLAna Cazares (Mexico, ) 'Lengua afuera', 2019 woodcut on paper Guarro Biblos 250g. 44.1 x 30 in. (112 x 76 cm.) Edition of 2 ID: CAZ-104Category
2010s Contemporary Portrait Prints
MaterialsPaper, Woodcut
- Ana Cazares, ¨Lengua de lado¨, 2019, Woodcut, 44.1x29.9 inLocated in Miami, FLAna Cazares (Mexico, ) 'Lengua de lado', 2019 woodcut on paper Guarro Biblos 250g. 44.1 x 30 in. (112 x 76 cm.) Edition of 3 ID: CAZ-103Category
2010s Contemporary Portrait Prints
MaterialsPaper, Woodcut
- Ana Cazares, ¨Boca abierta¨, 2019, Woodcut, 44.1x29.9 inLocated in Miami, FLAna Cazares (Mexico, ) 'Boca abierta', 2019 woodcut on paper Guarro Biblos 250g. 44.1 x 30 in. (112 x 76 cm.) Edition of 4 ID: CAZ-105Category
2010s Contemporary Portrait Prints
MaterialsPaper, Woodcut