Start: September 19, 2024 4 p.m.
End: September 19, 2024 5 p.m.
Location: Fine Arts Building and Museum of Art
About the Event
Ball State faculty and area schoolteachers are invited to a walk-through of The Art of Elizabeth Catlett from the Samella Lewis Collection with DOMA director Dr. Robert La France.
This tour is free, but registration is appreciated. Register today!
About the Exhibition
Sculptor, painter, and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett is widely considered one of the most important African American artists of the 20th century. Her work blends art and social consciousness, while confronting the most disturbing injustices against African Americans. Catlett is probably best known for her art from the 1960s and ‘70s, when she created politically charged, expressionistic sculptures and prints. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1919, she attended Howard University, where she studied design, printmaking, and drawing. In 1940, Catlett became the first student to earn a master's degree in sculpture at the University of Iowa. In 1946, Catlett received a fellowship that allowed her to travel to Mexico City, where she studied painting, sculpture, and lithography. There, she worked with the People's Graphic Arts Workshop (Taller de Gráfica Popular), a printmakers’ group dedicated to promoting social change through art. After settling in Mexico and later becoming a Mexican citizen, she taught sculpture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City until retiring in 1975.
The works on display in this exhibition come from the collection of artist, educator, and author Samella Lewis (1923–2022), Ph.D., professor emerita, art history, at Scripps College in Claremont, California. Lewis was Catlett’s student in the 1940s and Catlett became her mentor and lifelong friend.
The exhibition was organized by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA, and is brought to Ball State University courtesy of the Friends of the David Owsley Museum of Art.
Image: Elizabeth Catlett, American (1915 – 2012), Sharecropper, 1965, linocut, AP 17 3/8 x 16 ½ in., © Catlett Mora Family Trust/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.