Elizabeth Catlett, Legendary Artist, Passes Away At 96

Sculptor and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett, a U.S. expatriate renowned for her exemplary portrayals of African American and Mexican women, has died. She was 96.

Maria Antonieta Alvarez, Catlett’s daughter-in-law, said the artist died Monday in a house in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Born in Washington, D.C., Catlett moved to Mexico in 1946, became friends with great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and others in his circle, and married Mexican artist Francisco Mora.

She became known for her commitment for advocating and winning civil rights for blacks, women and workers in the United States and her adopted country. Catlett witnessed almost every important artistic and social movement of the 20th century and traveled in some of the same illustrious circles as the great American artist Jacob Lawrence and poet Langston Hughes.

She was arrested during a railroad workers’ protest in Mexico City in 1958 and in 1962 the U.S. State Department banned her from returning to the United States for nearly a decade because of her political affiliations. Her political activism also barred her from her home country during the McCarthy era.

Working in wood, stone and other natural materials, she produced simple, flowing sculptures of women, children and laborers, and prints of Mexicans and black Americans that she used to promote social justice.

Catlett, born on April 15, 1915, was raised by her mother, a teacher. Her father, who was also a teacher, had died little before she was born. She said she knew from age 6 that she wanted to be an artist.

She attended Howard University where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in art and then obtained her master’s at the University of Iowa where she was student of Grant Wood, painter of iconic “American Gothic.” Wood told his young student to make art about what she knew best.

Catlett took his advice to heart and began making images of strong and beautiful Black women, making signature issues of racial identity, family dynamics and social and political struggle.

While studying ceramics at the Art Institute of Chicago, she met her first husband, painter Charles White in the early 1940s.

In 1946, Elizabeth Catlett moved to Mexico City and met muralist Diego Rivera and other friends of him. Soon after, she joined a workshop of leftist printmakers and met her husband, Francisco Mora, who was also in the group.

The Mexican National Council for Culture and Arts said that throughout her career Catlett demonstrated “her interest in social justice and the rights of black and Mexican women.”

Her artwork derived from emotional energy from her investigation of racial and ethnic identity. Catlett says famed abolitionist Harriet Tubman and singer/civil rights advocate Paul Robeson inspired her.

The smooth, stylized faces she sculpted were less about individual people and more about the dignity and nobility of universal man, woman and child — sculpture that’s meant to comfort, uplift and inspire.

Her prints expressed her lifelong commitment to use art as a tool for social change, often incorporating the slogans (“Black Is Beautiful”) and revolutionary activists (Angela Davis and Malcolm X) of the civil rights and black power movements.

Elizabeth Catlett is survived by three sons, 10 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, her family said. The family said her remains would be cremated in a private ceremony and would remain in Mexico.