Artistry
Catlett is recognized primarily for sculpting and print work. Her sculptures are known for being provocative, but her prints are more widely recognized, mostly because of her work with the Taller de Gráfica Popular. Although she never left printmaking, starting in the 1950s, she shifted primarily to sculpture. Her print work consisted mainly of woodcuts and linocuts, while her sculptures were composed of a variety of materials, such as clay, cedar, mahogany, eucalyptus, marble, limestone, onyx, bronze, and Mexican stone (cantera). She often recreated the same piece in several different media. Sculptures ranged in size and scope from small wood figures inches high to others several feet tall to monumental works for public squares and gardens. This latter category includes a 10.5-foot sculpture of Louis Armstrong in New Orleans and a 7.5-foot work depicting Sojourner Truth in Sacramento.
Much of her work is realistic and highly stylized two- or three-dimensional figures, applying the Modernist principles (such as organic abstraction to create a simplified iconography to display human emotions) of Henry Moore, Constantin Brâncuși and Ossip Zadkine to popular and easily recognized imagery. Other major influences include African and pre-Hispanic Mexican art traditions. Her works do not explore individual personalities, not even those of historical figures; instead, they convey abstract and generalized ideas and feelings. Her imagery arises from a scrupulously honest dialogue with herself on her life and perceptions, and between herself and "the other", that is, contemporary society's beliefs and practices of racism, classism and sexism. Many young artists study her work as a model for themes relating to gender, race, and class, but she is relatively unknown to the general public.
Her work revolved around social injustice, the human condition, historical figures, women, and the relationship between mother and child. These themes were explicitly related to the African-American experience in the 20th century with some influence from Mexican reality. This focus began while she was at the University of Iowa, where she was encouraged to depict what she knew best. Her thesis was the sculpture Mother and Child (1939), which won first prize at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago in 1940.
Her subjects range from sensitive maternal images to confrontational symbols of Black Power, and portraits of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and writer Phillis Wheatley, as she believed that art could play a role in the construction of transnational and ethnic identity. Her best-known works depict black women as strong and maternal. The women are voluptuous, with broad hips and shoulders, in positions of power and confidence, often with torsos thrust forward to show attitude. Faces tend to be mask-like, generally upturned. Mother and Child (1939) shows a young woman with very short hair and features similar to that of a Gabon mask. A late work Bather (2009), has a similar subject flexing her triceps. Her linocut series The Black Woman Speaks is among the first graphic series in Western art to depict the image of the American black woman as a heroic and complex human being. Her work was influenced by the Harlem Renaissance movement and the Chicago Black Renaissance in the 1940s and reinforced in the 1960s and 1970s with the influence of the Black Power, Black Arts Movement and feminism. With artists like Lois Jones, she helped to create what critic Freida Tesfagiorgis called an "Afrofemcentrist" analytic.
The Taller de Gráfica Popular pushed her to adapt her work to reach the broadest possible audience, which generally meant balancing abstraction with figurative images. She stated of her time at the TGP: "I learned how you use your art for the service of people, struggling people, to whom only realism is meaningful."
Critic Michasel Brenson noted the "fluid, sensual surfaces" of her sculptures, which he said "seem to welcome not just the embrace of light but also the caress of the viewer's hand". Ken Johnson said that Ms. Catlett "gives wood and stone a melting, almost erotic luminosity". But he also criticized the iconography as "generic and clichéd".
However, Catlett was more concerned with the social messages of her work than with pure aesthetics. "I have always wanted my art to service my people – to reflect us, to relate to us, to stimulate us, to make us aware of our potential." She was a feminist and an activist before these movements took shape, pursuing a career in art despite segregation and the lack of female role models. "I don't think art can change things," Catlett said: "I think writing can do more. But art can prepare people for change, it can be educational and persuasive in people's thinking."
Catlett also acknowledged her artistic contributions as influencing younger black women. She relayed that being a black woman sculptor "before was unthinkable. ... There were very few black women sculptors – maybe five or six – and they all have very tough circumstances to overcome. You can be black, a woman, a sculptor, a print-maker, a teacher, a mother, a grandmother, and keep a house. It takes a lot of doing, but you can do it. All you have to do is decide to do it."
Catlett's The Negro Woman, dated 1946–1947, is a series of 15 linoleum cuts highlighting the experience of discrimination and racism that African-American women were facing at the time. This series also illustrated the strength and heroism of these women, including the historically prominent Harriet Tubman and Phillis Wheatley.
