Elizabeth Catlett - Negro es Bello II

Elizabeth Catlett was an American sculptor and printmaker, who worked in America and Mexico throughout her life. Catlett is known for her powerful works that confront the problems contemporary communities of her time faced. Her work often represented well-known heroes and heroines of social justice movements. Catlett was a strong supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, although she lived in Mexico during the latter half of her life. Negro es Bello II, produced in 1969, is a color lithograph print that pays homage to the Black Power Movement. The work shows two abstracted faces framed with Black Panther buttons that say, “Black is Beautiful.” With the exception of the yellow-orange buttons, Negro es Bello II is done entirely in black and white. The print includes visual influences from her African roots and her African American identity. These influences come together to create a unifying image for those who share Catlett’s identity. Elizabeth Catlett’s Negro es Bello II uses portraiture to send an empowering message of collective identity and strength during a time of intense struggle.

Catlett’s African American identity always played a strong role in her work. Identifying as both an African American and a Latin American woman after becoming a Mexican citizen in 1962,1 Catlett focused on celebrating these cultures and portraying the struggles her people faced with dignity. An early sense of awareness of the suffering of her people fueled her ambition and inspired Catlett to become one of the foremost African American political artists of the twentieth century.2

Elizabeth Catlett was born in Washington D.C. in 1915 during a harsh time for African Americans in the United States. Jim Crow laws were the norm in the south and discrimination and racism prevalent across the country.3 While there were few female African American artists at the time, Catlett was passionate and knew that someday her art could have an impact on the African American community. After being denied admission to Carnegie Mellon because of the color of her skin, she studied art and art history at Howard University, a historically black university, from 1931 to 1935. She then continued on to receive her master’s degree at the University of Iowa and began to study sculpture there under Grant Wood.4 While studying with Wood, she often used sculpture and printmaking to create portraits with critical or reflective expressions that referred to Black history.5 This became a recurring theme in her work throughout her life. After receiving her master’s degree, Catlett studied under Ossip Zadkine, an artist known for his cubist sculpture who encouraged her to experiment with abstraction. Catlett’s sculptural style includes rounded bodies influenced by African and ancient sculpture.6 Her background in sculpture largely impacted her print style.

Catlett was also influenced by the precedents she had seen in other successful political and social art movements. In the United States, Catlett understood the important role of printmaking after being exposed to the work of Harlem Renaissance artists.7 The movement, which was at its height during the 1930s, drew upon African and Caribbean heritages to become the earliest race conscious movement in the African American community. The incorporation of African American imagery in the Harlem Renaissance would later influence the Black Arts Movement that grew out of the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s, when Catlett produced Negro es Bello II.8

Catlett saw the way art could be used as the voice of a community from the Mexican Muralists. As she studied the work of Mexican muralists Diego Rivera and Miguel Covarrubias,9 her interest drew her to Mexico for the first time. The Mexican muralists were associated with the Mexican Renaissance, which, similarly to the Harlem Renaissance, emphasized the roots of Mexican culture. By using murals as a visual platform, the artist’s messages could be brought to the widest possible audience.10 The muralists covered topics from around the world, most of which were important to achieving equality in the Latin American community. The muralists influenced Catlett and the Black Arts movement in the 1960s as well, providing a model of highly politicized works aimed at improving racial equality.

Catlett, like the artists of the Harlem Renaissance and Mexican Renaissance, strived to place social engagement at the core of her work and sent similar messages with her own prints. She was known for her opinion that art should be produced from and based on ordinary people and ordinary experiences, making it accessible to all.11 Catlett chose her medium of prints because it was able to be duplicated easily and circulated around the world. She called prints a democratic medium, art for everyone.12 Even from Mexico, Catlett could reach her African American audiences in the United States. Negro es Bello II was used in this way to become a powerful image of the Black Power Movement. The Black Panthers, the name of the group associated with the movement, were able to use Catlett’s print to create a sense of collective identity and as a result, a sense of collective responsibility. Negro es Bello II raised more than awareness; it served as a form of protest, an acclamation of an important message, and a celebration of a community.

Negro es Bello II depicts a close up of two faces, one male and one female, and eleven rows of orange circles. Each of the fifty-eight circles includes the words “Black is Beautiful” and a single black panther at its center. The faces in Negro es Bello II are simplified and do not depict a specific individual, but instead resonate with the entire community. Negro es Bello II tells a narrative that is representative of the African American community in 1969. Negro es Bello II shares a story of African Americans fighting for justice, emphasizing the dignity and strength of a collective group while recognizing the group’s history and their past.

An influence of Catlett’s sculptural training is evident in her modeling of the male and female faces in the work. While they are abstracted and stylized to appear anonymous and are unrepresentative of a single individual, the faces are identifiable to African Americans as their own. This is largely due to the influence of Catlett’s studies of African sculpture and mask work. African masks served as an anonymous portrait as well, representing a social identity rather than a personal identity. African masks and sculpture may represent a real person, although identified through their trade or other attributes rather than a direct likeness to the individual or group.13 The sculptural modeling of the faces tie back to this tradition and emphasize a history that those involved in the Black Power Movement would have been familiar with.

In addition to recognizing the African history behind those fighting for civil rights, Negro es Bello II primarily sends a message about contemporary social justice issues the community faced. In the late 1960s, America was in turmoil, with the Vietnam War protests and the Civil Rights Movement reaching new heights at the same time. The Black Power Movement emerged at this time. The members of the Black Power Movement represented a group of people who believed that the Civil Rights Movement’s calls for equality and peaceful protest were no longer effective. The group used militia style unification and focused on more aggressive methods of obtaining racial justice. Catlett, although she had moved to Mexico in 1946, stayed connected with many friends from the Harlem Renaissance and quickly joined the Black Arts Movement, a community of artists with a collective aesthetic of self-determination linked to Black Power ideas.14 It was with the support of this community that she worked on prints about the struggles of the African American community, including Negro es Bello II, from her home in Mexico.

Catlett relies on the use of the Black Panther buttons to emphasize her message in Negro es Bello II and direct a specific audience to the print. The Black Panther buttons tie audiences to the contemporary struggle, allowing the print to recall the African past but boldly comment on the inequality faced at the time. The buttons can be used to connect with anyone interested in supporting the fight for justice and equality. The faces behind the buttons, behind the Black Power Movement, are modeled to appear stoic but powerful. Negro es Bello II sends the message to all of these individuals that they are strong; Catlett celebrates them and their strength and supports them in their mission through her art.

Negro es Bello II is representative of a community of people to which the artist related. Throughout her life, Catlett was focused on telling the stories of those who were relevant to the lives of African Americans, such as Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. However, Negro es Bello II was her chance to tell a story close to her heart. Catlett knew what it felt like to be discriminated against, yet she did not let these setbacks tear her down. Instead, she used her art as a platform for empowerment. Catlett saw herself not only as an ally to the African American community she portrays in Negro es Bello II, but as a fighter as well. The collective identity Catlett creates a portrait of in Negro es Bello II includes her own identity as an African American female fighting for racial justice.

Negro es Bello II is not always thought of as a portrait. However, the central theme of identity links it directly to portraiture. In researching Catlett’s process, past subjects, and history, this work fits in with this theme. In The Negro Women series, Catlett places herself in an emotionally vulnerable position. The titles of the work in this series are in first person, expressing a personal identity and sharing her own history, hopes, and fears with audiences through these works. Melanie Herzog, a Catlett expert who spoke to the artist many times in her life, saw the ability Negro es Bello II had as a voice of a community just like Catlett’s other works. She understood the print as a portrait of a collective identity, of a group of people all fighting for the same thing.15 All at once, Negro es Bello II evokes a sense of fear, a sense of hope, and a sense of strength to overcome any struggle. Most importantly, it captures the times. By capturing the feeling of the movement and the people in it, Negro es Bello II solidifies its place as a portrait of the Black Power movement.

Elizabeth Catlett devoted her life to representing ordinary subjects she saw as extraordinary. Works like Negro es Bello II were representative of the strength she saw in the people she viewed as heroes of the time. Catlett took pride in her cultural identity, and wanted to use her visual arts platform as a space to further the mission of a community with which she identified. In 1969, that mission was Black Power. Negro es Bello II stands as a portrait of this group of people by creating a sense of collective identity. Negro es Bello II worked to protest alongside the African American community and applauded their strength. The print serves as a visual representation and reminder of what the members of the Black Power movement already had inside them, resilience, determination, strength, and beauty.

Sydney Krassen

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1Paul Von Blum. "Catlett, Elizabeth," Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, accessed December 12, 2015, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T2021561.

2Paul Von Blum. "Catlett, Elizabeth," Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, accessed December 12, 2015, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T2021561.

3Klare Scarborough. Elizabeth Catlett: Art for Social Justice (Philadelphia: La Salle University Art Museum, 2015), 15-17.

4Melanie Anne Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett: In the Image of the People (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2005), 3.

5“CATLETT, Elizabeth," Benezit Dictionary of Artists, Oxford Art Online, accessed December 12, 2015, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/benezit/B00204617.

6“CATLETT, Elizabeth," Benezit Dictionary of Artists, Oxford Art Online, accessed December 12, 2015, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/benezit/B00204617.

7Melanie Anne Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett: In the Image of the People (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2005), 6.

8Perry, Regenia, et al. "African American art." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed December 12, 2015, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T001094.

9Klare Scarborough. Elizabeth Catlett: Art for Social Justice (Philadelphia: La Salle University Art Museum, 2015), 7.

10Kendall Taylor, "Propaganda," Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, accessed December 12, 2015, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T069819.

11Melanie Anne Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett: In the Image of the People (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2005), 7.

12Sydney Krassen in discussion with Melanie Herzog, Catlett expert, October 2015.

13Jean M. Borgatti, “Portraiture in Africa,” African Arts, doi:10.2307/3336827.

14Melanie Anne Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett: In the Image of the People (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2005), 31.

15Sydney Krassen in discussion with Melanie Herzog, Catlett expert, October 2015.

Catalogue
Elizabeth Catlett - Negro es Bello II