Elizabeth Catlett: An American Artist in Mexico (Jacob Lawrence Series on American Artists) [Hardcover]

Melanie Anne Herzog (Author)

Book Description

Series: Jacob Lawrence Series on American Artists | Publication Date: August 2000

Elizabeth Catlett, born in Washington, DC, in 1915, is widely acknowledged as a major presence in African American art, and her work is celebrated as a visually eloquent expression of African American identity and pride in cultural heritage. But this is not the whole story. She has lived in Mexico for 50 years, as a citizen of that country since 1962, and she and her husband, artist Francisco Mora, have raised their children there. For 20 years she was a member of the Taller de Grafica Popular (Popular Graphic Arts Workshop) and she was the first woman professor of sculpture at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Her extraordinary career has stretched from her years as a student at Howard University during the 1930s through various political and social movements - including the Chicago Renaissance of the 1940s, the Black Power and Black Arts movements, the Mexican Public Art Movement, and feminism - which have informed her art. This richly illustrated and informative monograph is the first to document the full range of Catlett's life and work. In addition to thoroughly researching primary source materials and to critiquing individual art works with sensitivity and erudition, the author has conducted numerous interviews with Catlett and has analyzed with clarity the political context of her work and her diverse sympathies and allegiances. Herzog examines key artistic influences and shows how Catlett transformed an extraordinary stylistic vocabulary into a socially charged statement. In tracing Catlett's long and continuing career as a graphic artist and sculptor in Mexico, Herzog explores an important period in Catlett's life between the 1950s and the 1970s about which almost nothing is known in the United States. She examines the "Mexicanness" in Catlett's work in its fluent relationship to the underlying and constant sense of African American identity she brought with her to Mexico. Herzog's solidly grounded interpretation offers a new way to understand Catlett's work and reveals this artist as a fascinating and pivotal intercultural figure whose powerful art manifests her firm belief that the visual arts can play a role in the construction of a meaningful identity, both transnational and ethnically grounded. Melanie Anne Herzog is associate professor of art history at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Art historian Herzog describes Catlett as "the foremost African American woman artist of her generation," yet how many Americans know that she has lived and worked in Mexico for the last 50 years? Drawing on extensive interviews, Herzog presents the first comprehensive monograph on Catlett's trailblazing life and work. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1915 and a graduate of Howard University and the University of Iowa, Catlett was inspired by her grandmother's stories of slavery and empowered by her academic parents. Believing that art can effect social change, Catlett traveled to Mexico in 1946 and discovered a vital arts community relatively free of racism and far more supportive of her progressive politics than McCarthy-era New York. She also fell in love, married the Mexican artist Francisco Mora, had three sons, and became the first woman professor of sculpture at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Herzog's chronicle of Catlett's achievements and cross-cultural aesthetics enriches the impact of her proud and compassionate figurative art in which tremendous fluency of form expresses an abiding humanitarianism. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"I am black, a woman, a sculptor, and a printmaker. I am also married, the mother of three sons, and the grandmother of seven little girls and a boy. I was born in the United States and have lived in Mexico since 1946. I believe that all these states of being have influenced my work and made it what you see today. I am inspired by black people and Mexican people, my two peoples. My art speaks for both my peoples." Elizabeth Catlett

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: University of Washington Press; 1st Pbk. Ed edition (August 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0295979402
• ISBN-13: 978-0295979403
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,124,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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