Elizabeth Catlett's I Am the Negro Woman: Emerging from the Margins

This art historiographical study focuses on African American artist Elizabeth Catlett’s linocut series I Am the Negro Woman, composed of fifteen images and executed in 1947 while Catlett was a visiting artist at the Taller de Graphica Popular in Mexico City. The series was exhibited shortly thereafter at the Barnett Aden Gallery in Washington, D.C., only to be largely marginalized by the art historical discourse of the following twenty-five years; however, during the Civil Rights Movement, a renewed interest in Catlett and her works began to develop. Later Feminist and Post-colonial art historians, seeking to widen the narrow mid-twentieth century canon, incrementally began to address these images in accordance with their respective interests, expanding the scholarship and increasing the exhibition of the series. The reputation of these images continues to grow, moving I Am the Negro Woman out of the margins of the art historical discourse into a more valued and recognized position.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Art History

Year dc:date.available

2011

Author dc:creator

• Gottwald, Margaret

Contributors dc:contributor

• Eric Garberson

• Catlett
• historiography
• linocut
• Black artist
• I Am the Negro Woman
• Arts and Humanities

Statement dc:rights

• © The Author

Identifier

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/216

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1215