ABOUT THIS BOOK

A book highlighting the work of pioneering Black printmaker, sculptor, and activist Elizabeth Catlett.

Accomplished printmaker and sculptor, avowed feminist, and lifelong activist Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012) built a remarkable career around intersecting passions for formal rigor and social justice. This book, accompanying a major traveling retrospective, offers a revelatory look at the artist and her nearly century-long life, highlighting overlooked works alongside iconic masterpieces.

Catlett’s activism and artistic expression were deeply connected, and she protested the injustices of her time throughout her life. Her work in printmaking and sculpture draws on organic abstraction, the modernism of the United States and Mexico, and African art to center the experiences of Black and Mexican women. Catlett attended Howard University, studied with the painter Grant Wood, joined the Harlem artistic community, and worked with a leftist graphics workshop in Mexico, where she lived in exile after the US accused her of communism and barred her re-entry into her home country.

The book’s essays address a range of topics, including Catlett’s early development as an artist-activist, the impact of political exile on her work, her pedagogical legacy, her achievement as a social realist printmaker, her work with the arts community of Chicago’s South Side, and the diverse influences that shaped her practice.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Dalila Scruggs is the Augusta Savage Curator of African American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She has held curatorial and education positions at the Williams College Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York.

REVIEWS

"Accompanying the exhibition is a book that offers a detailed look at Catlett’s nearly century-long life, highlighting both overlooked works and iconic masterpieces. Edited by Smithsonian curator Dalila Scruggs and co-published with the University of Chicago Press, the book addresses various aspects of Catlett’s development as an artist-activist, the impact of her political exile, her pedagogical legacy, and the diverse influences on her work. The exhibition underscores Catlett’s enduring legacy as an artist who used her art to drive social change and empower marginalized communities."

— Untitled Magazine

"Edited by curator Dalila Scruggs, the book brilliantly illustrates how Catlett immersed herself in the formal and political possibilities of sculpture, drawing, painting, and printmaking. . . . this catalog is not only a gripping critical overview of Catlett’s impact on global art and activism — it is a necessary contribution to the rich, global genealogy of radical Black art histories. Catlett reminds us that identity alone doesn’t make one revolutionary; actions in pursuit of our shared liberation are just as crucial."

— Alexandra M. Thomas, Hyperallergic

"Excellent. There are many nights of inspiration on those pages."

— New York Latin Culture

"The time couldn't be better for Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies, the catalog for the decades-spanning exhibition of the Chicago-trained, politically-charged artist."

— Chicago Tirbune, on "Gift Books for 2024"

"In these pages, you’ll find over 150 works spanning her nearly seven-decade career, including linocut prints, lithographs, terracotta sculptures, and murals, as well as insightful essays by editor Scruggs and an assemblage of art historians and curators. To call Catlett a 'trailblazer' feels cliched and insufficient, yet that’s precisely what she was: She melded art and activism, enacting her politics as an educator and organizer while establishing an iconography of justice as a sculptor and printmaker. At last, a visionary gets her due."

— Sophia Stewart, Hyperallergic, on "The 30 Best Art Books of 2024"

"Handsomely designed and bound with durable paperboard covers, this catalog presents and unprecedented examination of Elizabeth Catlett, the artist known for her figurative sculptures and powerful printmaking."

— Culture Type, on the "16 Best Black Art Books of 2024"

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Plates: 1915–1947

Plates: 1947–1960

Plates: 1960–1975

Plates: 1975–2012

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