Elizabeth Catlett

A richly illustrated re-discovery of a great artist who was among the first to create images and sculptures of African-American life and history to close a gap in the canon of art history. At the start of the twentieth century, there were certain absences in the way that African American history was represented in the canon of art history. Some collective experiences lacked images with which people could identify, which were necessary for the idea of community and a shared iconography to emerge. These images – clear, precise and invariably personal portraits of people close to her and heroines or showing events from African American history – were created by Elizabeth Catlett. Text: Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, E.N. Mirembe, Hannah Black, Manthia Diawara und Terri Geis, Melanie Herzog, Precious Okoyomon.