Head (Head of a Man)

1943

Elizabeth Catlett (American, active in Mexico, 1915–2012)

Elizabeth Catlett made this sculpture early in her career, just after a formative period in Chicago. Its angular features and deep carvings demonstrate Catlett’s confident abstraction of the human form. She was inspired by African art, which she saw as the precursor to modernist abstraction; “After all,” she said, “abstraction was born in Africa.” Catlett continued to build on these formal qualities through sculptures, prints, and paintings, developing an expressive, modern aesthetic to depict African American subjects.

Status: On View, Gallery 264
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Elizabeth Catlett
Title: Head (Head of a Man)
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1943
Medium: Limestone
Inscriptions: Signed: EC (incised at back edge, lower left)
Dimensions: 34.3 × 24.1 × 18.4 cm (13 1/2 × 9 1/2 × 7 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Roger and J. Peter McCormick and Jane and Morris Weeden endowment funds; Arts of the Americas Discretionary Fund
Reference Number: 2021.413

Samella Lewis, The Art of Elizabeth Catlett (Hancraft Studios, 1984), 188.
Julie Schlenger Adell, “Swann Auction Galleries, New York City: African American Art Sale,” Maine Antiques Digest, 40, 1 (Jan. 2022): 106 (ill.).
Sarah Kelly Oehler, “Elizabeth Catlett’s Head (Head of a Man),” New Acquisition (blog) Art Institute of Chicago, May 24, 2023, https://www.artic.edu/articles/1046/elizabeth-catlett-s-head-head-of-a-man (ill.).

Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012), New York, 1943; to Charles White (1918–1979), New York, possibly in 1947; to Melvin (1923–1995) and Lorraine (1926–2018) Williamson, New York, c. 1965; by descent to their daughter Lisa Rosenberg, New Jersey, 2018; sold Swann Auction Galleries, New York, October 7, 2021, lot 28, to the Art Institute of Chicago.

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