John & Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art
Reno, Nevada
The Lilley Museum of Art is located on the main campus of the University of Nevada, Reno.
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Artist: Elizabeth Catlett (American, 1915-2012)
Elizabeth Catlett, full name Elizabeth Alice Catlett was born April 15, 1915, in Washington, D.C., and died on April 2, 2012, in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Catlett worked in sculpture, printmaking, and is widely known for her politically focused work. Catlett was a granddaughter of slaves. She enrolled at Howard University after being denied entrance to Carnegie Institute of Technology because of her race. At Howard she studied design, printmaking, and drawing, influenced by the art theories of Alan Locke and James A. Porter. She earned a B.S. in 1935. In 1940 Catlett became the first student to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture at the University of Iowa.
After Catlett taught for an extended amount of time while expanding her range of media, she went to Mexico City in 1946 to work at the Taller de Grafica Popular, an artists' collective. There, along with her husband at the time, Charles White, created prints depicting Mexican life. During the 1950s she underwent investigation by the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee for her left-wing activism. In 1962 she became a citizen of Mexico. Catlett mainly chose to illustrate famous subjects, such as Harriet Tubman and Malcolm X, and anonymous workers consisting of black women. Some notable works include Sharecropper (1968), Survivor (1983), and Negro es Bello (1968; "Black is Beautiful). She continued making art into her 90s.
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