Painter, sculptor, and printmaker, Elizabeth Catlett (b. 1915) played an influential role in America's African American and Mexico's revolutionary art communities in the mid-twentieth century. Catlett studied at the University of Iowa (where she briefly worked with Grant Wood), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Art Students League in New York before moving to Mexico in 1947.

Focusing on Catlett’s evocative Negro Woman series from 1946–47, this book reveals Catlett’s commitment to social and political issues. All of the fifteen linoleum prints are featured together address the harsh reality of black women’s labor; renowned historical heroines such as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Phillis Wheatley; and the fears, struggles, and achievements of ordinary African American women. Other notable works by Catlett are also included, and an absorbing essay by distinguished scholar Melanie Anne Herzog analyzes the artist’s powerful work from a biographical perspective.

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