Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012)
I AM THE BLACK WOMAN
SOLD
Group of 14 linoleum cuts, (three printed in color), on wove paper, 1946-47. Each pencil signed, titled, dated and numbered 16/20 in pencil, lower margin. Each printed at Robert Blackburn's Printmaking Workshop, New York, 1989.
In 1946, upon winning a Julius Rosenwald Foundation Grant, Elizabeth Catlett left New York for Mexico City. There, she embarked on a monumental project in printmaking at the Taller de Grafica Popular, her I am the Negro Woman series. Her first major project at the studio, Catlett was inspired by the Mexican collaborative political art being produced, including the historic Estampas de la Rovolucion Mexicana portfolio with 85 linoleum cuts and text. For the first time, Catlett embedded herself in her artwork, as "through her naming, she transformed the artist/object relationship into one of profound identification," inserting herself as an African-American woman into a narrative whole.
As many of these original prints from the Taller de Gráfica Popular did not survive, in 1989, Catlett reprinted an edition of 20, altering the title to reflect the changes in language and politics of the era. The 15th block from her original series, I have studied in ever increasing numbers, did not survive; the edition from 1989 includes the other 14. There is only one other complete set of 14 with all of the the impressions having the same number in the edition, in the collection of the Miami-Dade Public Library. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the estate of the artist, and a private New York collection each have a set of 15 that includes both original and later printings. (Herzog p. 59.)