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Elizabeth Catlett is considered one of the most important sculptors of the 20^th century. Her elegant, simple work mainly focuses on the stories and experiences of African-American and Latinx peoples, especially working-class women and children. Catlett has consistently demonstrated an instinctive knowledge of her materials, whether working in wood, stone or print, and coveys the intrinsic strength and beauty of both the medium and her subjects.

Born in Alice Elizabeth Catlett in Washington, D.C. in 1915, Catlett attended Howard University School of Art where she graduated cum laude in 1936. She had not originally intended to attend Howard; she had won a scholarship to the Carnegie Institute of Technology, in Pittsburgh, but, upon learning that she was Black, the college refused to allow her to matriculate.  In 1940, she achieved two great heights: she became the first student to earn an MFA degree in sculpture from the University of Iowa, and she received the “first honor” in sculpture at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago. She went on to study ceramics at the Art Institute of Chicago and later in New York she studied lithography at the Art Students League.

Catlett is also the winner of two prestigious Rosenwald Fellowships in 1941 and 1946. Given by the Julius Rosenwald Fund, which focused on creating equal opportunities for all Americans, the Rosenwald Fellowship was awarded to African-American artists, writers, and scholars, as well as Southern Whites with interests in race relations. With the first, she traveled with her first husband, fellow artist Charles White, to the Southern U.S. to study and make sketches for a proposed mural for Hampton Institute (later Hampton University.) Her experience with the extreme racism she encountered there led her to dedicate her art to Black awareness. During this time, she also taught at Dillard University in New Orleans, Prairie View College in Texas, and Hampton Institute in Virginia. With the second fellowship, she traveled to Mexico City to work with the Taller de Grafica Popular (TGP), a collective graphic arts and mural workshop. There she cultivated the theme for her work, the African American woman. It was here that she created a series of 15 prints entitled “I Am The Negro Woman” in 1947, celebrating black women’s contributions as field laborers, domestic workers, educators, and activists.

It was in Mexico that Catlett met her second husband, printer-engraver Francisco Mora. They were married in 1947, and the couple were an integral part of an artistic community that included Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. From 1958 through 1976, she directed the sculpture department at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City. She was the university’s first female professor of sculpture.

Catlett’s commitment to social justice for the most vulnerable in the United States and Mexico led her to decades of vocal activism and protest. She was suspected of being a Communist because of her association with TGP. After her arrest during a railroad workers’ strike in 1949, she was even declared an “undesirable alien” by the U.S. State Department, had her citizenship revoked and was barred from entering the country for 10 years.