Art © Catlett Mora Family Trust/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
On view
American Art
Wilmerding Pavilion
Philip & Nancy Anschutz Gallery
Wilmerding Pavilion
Philip & Nancy Anschutz Gallery
Friends,
1944
Elizabeth Catlett, 1915–2012; born Washington, D.C., died Cuernavaca, Mexico
2016-10
Catlett made Friends when she and her first husband and fellow artist Charles White taught at the progressive George Washington Carver School in Harlem. For Catlett, the experience opened her eyes to the limitations of her own middle-class background. Teaching in this environment, she explained, “gave me a basis for what I wanted to do in art”—namely to address the lives of working-class African Americans. Friends belies its diminutive scale, projecting a monumental presence that is both graphic and sculptural, qualities present throughout the artist’s politically charged work. Catlett foregrounds the expressive, angular faces of her subjects, crafted with an intricately layered web of fluctuating linear patterns. Made early in her career, the work already showcases the artist’s mastery of technique and composition in the tautly constructed play of folds and curves of the couple’s clothes and in the quiet drama of their gaze-driven dialogue.
More About This Object
Information
Title
Friends
Dates
1944
Maker
Medium
Egg tempera and blue colored pencil on Masonite board
Dimensions
28.6 × 23.5 cm (11 1/4 × 9 1/4 in.)
frame: 46.4 × 41.3 × 3.5 cm (18 1/4 × 16 1/4 × 1 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Laura P. Hall Memorial Fund
Object Number
2016-10
Place Made
North America, United States, New York, New York, Harlem
Signatures
Signed lower left in blue: Catlett
Culture
Type
Materials
Subject
Acquired from the artist by William Patterson (1891-1980) and Louise Thompson Patterson (1901-1999), NYC; thence by descent to Private collection; [ Swann Galleries, NYC, December 15, 2015, lot 21]; purchased by the Princeton University Art Museum, December, 2015.
