Head of a Young Woman
Artist: Elizabeth Catlett (American, 1915-2012)
Date: about 1947
Dimensions:
height without base: 10 1/2 × 8 3/4 × 6 1/4 in. (26.7 × 22.2 × 15.9 cm)
height of wooden stand: 7 13/16 × 8 1/2 × 8 3/8 in. (19.8 × 21.6 × 21.3 cm)
Overall [head + base]: 17 11/16 × 8 3/4 × 8 3/8 in. (44.9 × 22.2 × 21.3 cm)
Medium: grit-tempered clay
Classification: Sculpture
Credit Line: Gift of Florence Scott Libbey, by exchange
Object number: 2006.145
Label Text:In 1946, with a grant from the Rosenwald Foundation, Elizabeth Catlett moved from her home in Washington, DC, to Mexico City, where she spent most of her career. Head of a Young Woman elegantly expresses her abiding interest in representing the figure in a straightforward, powerful manner. This sculpture’s stylization and simplification reflect both the prevailing Modernist aesthetic and Catlett’s own interest in the human figure in African art and the pre-Columbian art of Mexico.
Throughout her long career Catlett, the granddaughter of former slaves, used her art to address injustices, tackling controversial issues like lynching and racially motivated violence, the C.I.A.’s involvement in Central America, and Mexico’s discrimination against its Indigenous peoples. In both sculpture and printmaking, she also celebrated famous forebears in African American history and unsung people of color—her family and friends, laborers, the poor, and the oppressed. It is these ordinary people and their struggles and dreams in whom she found the most beauty and inspiration, as revealed in this striking portrait that is at once personal, poignant, and universal.
Throughout her long career Catlett, the granddaughter of former slaves, used her art to address injustices, tackling controversial issues like lynching and racially motivated violence, the C.I.A.’s involvement in Central America, and Mexico’s discrimination against its Indigenous peoples. In both sculpture and printmaking, she also celebrated famous forebears in African American history and unsung people of color—her family and friends, laborers, the poor, and the oppressed. It is these ordinary people and their struggles and dreams in whom she found the most beauty and inspiration, as revealed in this striking portrait that is at once personal, poignant, and universal.
Not on view
In Collection(s)