Madonna II

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Artist/Maker Elizabeth Catlett (American and Mexican, 1915 - 2012)

Printer Workshop Inc., Washington, DC

Date1992

MediumScreenprint

DimensionsImage: 21 3/16 × 15 1/16 in. (53.8 × 38.3 cm) Sheet: 21 15/16 × 15 13/16 in. (55.7 × 40.2 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, The Wynant J. Williams '35 Art Collection Fund

Object number2017.1

On view

DescriptionElizabeth Catlett was born in Washington, DC, attended Howard University, and, after graduating in 1935, worked as a teacher for two years in the Durham, North Carolina, public schools. She then attended graduate school at the University of Iowa, where she studied with the American painter Grant Wood. Catlett became increasingly interested in sculpture, however, and in 1940 received the university’s first master of fine arts degree to be awarded in the field. One of the works in her thesis exhibition was titled Negro Mother and Child—a theme that would continue in her work throughout her life. In both sculpture and printmaking, Catlett explored Black subjects. Madonna II references traditional images of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child as well as African mother-and-child compositions even as it delves into the relationship between two and three dimensions, presenting its human forms as articulated by somewhat abstracted planes. In addition, at the bottom, parts of both figures spill out of the picture plane into the print’s black border, breaching the viewer’s space, much as in Madonna and Child images by Renaissance painters such as the Venetian Giovanni Bellini. Here, the plasticity of the figures is countered by the flatness of the garments and the splattered background, which references both the gilded backgrounds of medieval religious icons and the gestural paintings of the Abstract Expressionists. Madonna II was printed at Workshop, Inc., by Lou Stovall, an artist in his own right who founded the studio in Washington, DC, in 1968. There, he has acted as a master printer for a number of prominent artists, including Sam Gilliam and Jacob Lawrence, in addition to Catlett. (SOURCE: Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS, 2017)

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Additional Details

Exhibition History 2017
Clinton, NY (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College). "Innovative Approaches, Honored Traditions: The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Five Years, Highlights from the Permanent Collection," September 9 - December 10, 2017 (cat. no. 116, illus.).

Provenance 2016: Hamilton College (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art), by purchase at auction from Swann Auction Gallery, New York, NY.

Markings Blindstamps: [Stovall Print Workshop chop mark] lower left margin; [Stovall Print Workshop chop mark] on cover sheet at lower left.

Published References Katherine D. Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS: THE RUTH AND ELMER WELLIN MUSEUM OF ART AT FIVE YEARS, HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION (Clinton, NY: Wellin Museum of Art, 2017), p. 254.

Signature Signed "E Catlett '91" lower right margin in white pencil.

Inscribed "Madonna II / AP 3/24" lower left margin, in white pencil; "AP 3/25" on cover sheet at lower left in pencil.