Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Impli

 Also see: https://africanamericanartq.blogspot.com/2022/04/elizabeth-catlett.html

he Art Institute of Chicago opened Elizabeth Catlett: “A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies” on view August 30, 2025 through January 4, 2026 

Elizabeth Catlett. Alto a la agresión, 1954. Colección Academia de Artes, México. © 2024 Mora-Catlett Family / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

A defining Black woman artist of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012) has not received the mainstream art-world attention afforded many of her peers. The Brooklyn Museum, in partnership with the National Gallery of Art, closes this gap with Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies, an exhibition of over 200 works that gives this revolutionary artist and radical activist her due.

Elizabeth Catlett. Sharecropper, 1952, printed 1970. The Art Institute of Chicago, purchased with funds provided by Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. Hartman. © 2024 Mora-Catlett Family / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

A deft sculptor and printmaker, devout feminist, and lifelong social justice advocate, Catlett was uniquely committed to both her creative process and political convictions. Growing up during the Great Depression, she witnessed class inequality, racial violence, and U.S. imperialism firsthand, all while pursuing an artistic education grounded in the tenets of modernism. Catlett would protest injustices for nearly a century, via both soaring artworks and on-the-ground activism.

Born in Washington, DC, Catlett settled permanently in Mexico in 1946 and for the rest of her life she worked to amplify the experiences of Black and Mexican women. Inspired by sources ranging from African sculpture to works by Barbara Hepworth and Käthe Kollwitz, Catlett never lost sight of the Black liberation struggle in the United States. Characterized by bold lines and voluptuous forms, her powerful work continues to speak directly to all those united in the fight against poverty, racism, and imperialism.

Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies is organized by Dalila Scruggs, Augusta Savage Curator of African American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum; Catherine Morris, Sackler Senior Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum; and Mary Lee Corlett, Associate Curator of Modern Prints and Drawings (retired), National Gallery of Art; with Rashieda Witter, Curatorial Assistant, National Gallery of Art, and Carla Forbes, Curatorial Assistant, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition is organized by the Brooklyn Museum and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago.

Silver Linings: Celebrating the Spelman Art Collection

 

Harn Museum of Art (University of Florida) - Gainesville, FL

February 4 - August 3 2025

Hunter Museum of American Art - Chattanooga, TN

September 26 , 2025 - January 12, 2026

Silver Linings: Celebrating the Spelman Art Collection uplifts the legacy of artists of African descent spanning the twentieth century through the contemporary moment who were overlooked by mainstream art museums.

The Spelman College Museum of Fine Art was founded in 1996 and the mission is to uplift art by and about women of the African diaspora.

After two years of closure, the Spelman Museum reopened with a permanent collection exhibition marking its 25th anniversary, Silver Linings: Celebrating the Spelman Art Collection.

Silver Linings celebrates the legacy of artists of African descent spanning the twentieth century through the contemporary moment. It includes 

Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Christ and His Disciples Before the Last Supper (1908 – 1909) and the museum’s recent most acquisition of 

Carrie Mae Weems’s Color Real and Imagined (2014).

Silver Linings includes an array of media spanning sculptural works by Elizabeth Catlett and Selma Burke, and photographic works by Lorna Simpson and Renée Cox. It also displays the museum’s holdings of abstract paintings by Sam Gilliam and 

Betty Blayton (1937 - 2016), "Vibes Penetrated," 1983, acrylic on canvas, diameter: 60 3/4 in. Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. Spelman College Purchase. © Estate of Betty Blayton

Betty Blayton, as well as works on paper by Samella Lewis and Herman “Kofi” Bailey. This exhibition is critical to understanding the importance of art collecting within Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and includes work by Black artists across genders who were overlooked by mainstream art museums.

Silver Linings features approximately 40 works by Amalia Amaki, Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Firelei Báez, Herman “Kofi” Bailey, Romare Bearden, Betty Blayton, Beverly Buchanan, Selma Burke, Elizabeth Catlett, Floyd Coleman, Renée Cox, Myra Greene, Sam Gilliam, Samella Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Howardena Pindell, Lucille Malkia Roberts, Deborah Roberts, Faith Ringgold, Nellie Mae Rowe, Lorna Simpson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Lina Iris Viktor, Carrie Mae Weems, and Hale Woodruff.