Skip to Content

My Museum Tour

 Mmtlandingpageheader Desktop2 Mmtlandingpageheader Mobile1

Catlett Connections

6 artworks from 5 artists across 5 galleries
The tour is ordered to begin from the Michigan Avenue entrance. If you are starting in the Modern Wing, simply do your tour in reverse order.

Learn more about sculptor, printmaker, feminist, and social activist Elizabeth Catlett—the subject of our current groundbreaking exhibition—and discover the artists who inspired her.

Share

  • An oil painting of a large, male African American figure who looks left into the distance. He holds his hand out towards the dark blue sky, and he appears to break free from a pile of rubble in the background.

    This, My Brother

    Charles White

    Gallery 262, second level, Arts of the Americas Galleries

    Charles White believed art could be a force in promoting equality for African Americans. This painting draws its title from a 1936 novel about a rural white miner who experiences a political awakening and joins the proletarian struggle against capitalism. White transformed the protagonist into a Black man who breaks free from a mountain of rubble, a hopeful image of the possibility of social change.

    "Catlett spent a short but pivotal time in Chicago. She studied at the School of the Art Institute and the South Side Community Art Center and met many artists who shared her same progressive learnings, including her first husband, Charles White."

  • Painting of a woman and an older white man holding a pitchfork, both seen from the waist up. They stand side by side with stern expressions, in front of a white house with a peaked roof.

    American Gothic

    Grant Wood

    Gallery 263, second level, Arts of the Americas Galleries

    One of America’s most famous paintings, American Gothic debuted at the Art Institute of Chicago, winning Grant Wood a $300 prize and instant fame. Wood used his sister and dentist as models, depicting them in front of an 1880s-style house. While the painting is often seen as a satirical commentary on the Midwestern character, Wood intended it to a positive statement about rural American values.

    "Catlett attended the University of Iowa, where she studied with Grant Wood (of 'American Gothic' fame) and became the first Black women to earn an MFA there. Wood encouraged Catlett to work with the subjects she knew best, particularly Black women."

  • Painting of an Indigenous woman native to Mexico bent and seated on a brown floor, using red thread to create a geometric design on a backstrap loom. Earth tones dominate, while a dresser in the background and the bottom portion of the woman's white dress are a deep blue.

    Weaving

    Diego Rivera

    Gallery 263, second level, Arts of the Americas Galleries

    Diego Rivera, a leading modernist painter who came to prominence in the years after the Mexican Revolution (1910–20), promoted a vision of Mexican national identity rooted in Indigenous and folk cultures, distinct from the legacies of Spanish colonialism. Here, he focuses on Luz Jiménez, a master weaver and Nahua, one of the largest Indigenous groups in Mesoamerica. By centering Jiménez, Rivera claimed her traditions as part of his own.

    "Living in Mexico from 1946 through the end of her life, Catlett was part of an artistic circle that included luminaries like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. She married the Mexican artist Francisco Mora with whom she had three children."

  • Sculpture of a man's head in beige limestone, facing front. The nose is strong and angular, the lips closed and full, the ears flat at top, the hair textured and cropped short. The wide eyes are deeply carved.

    Head (Head of a Man)

    Elizabeth Catlett

    Gallery 182, first level, Abbot Galleries

    Catlett focused her career on representing African American subjects. She carved this bust in the early 1940s when, influenced by her study of African art, she began experimenting with abstraction. Though the figure is simplified and modernist, Catlett has carefully carved asymmetries into his features, creating a sense of individuality and vitality in smooth planes of limestone.

    "Catlett taught sculpture at the George Washington Carver School in Harlem. While there, she met many luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance, including Aaron Douglass, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Bennett, Jacob Lawrence, and many others."

  • Print rendered in visible uniform lines of a 2/3 bust view of a dark-skinned mature woman looking to her left in a wide brim hat, a safety pin securing her black jacket. Her face and neck is a rich brown hue, while the rest of the portrait is rendered in black and white.

    Sharecropper

    Elizabeth Catlett

    Gallery 184, first level, Abbot Galleries

    Catlett created this linocut in Mexico, where she moved in 1946 to work at the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People’s Graphic Arts Workshop). Influenced by the workshop's spirit of activism, she produced artwork that advocated for justice for African Americans. "Sharecropper" shows her determination to highlight the lives of Black women, here drawing attention to the inequitable system of tenant farming that resulted in cycles of increasing debt.

    "Across nearly 100 years—from Jim Crow segregation through the Cold War and into Barack Obama’s first term as president—Catlett remained steadfast in her commitment to both her art and her political beliefs."

  • Two oblong pieces of wood that taper towards the bottom attached to a rectangular base of lighter wood. Each form has rounded openings painted white.

    Two Figures (Menhirs)

    Barbara Hepworth

    Gallery 291, second level, Contemporary Galleries

    The forms of Barbara Hepworth's sculptures recall upright human figures or ancient monoliths. She lived near the menhirs erected by Neolithic civilizations in present-day England and incorporated the totemic aspect of these prehistoric monuments, while also seeking "some absolute essence in sculptural terms giving the quality of human relationships." Her signature technique involved piercing carved wood and highlighting the cavities with paint.

    "Catlett’s prints and sculptures are characterized by bold lines and voluptuous forms inspired by sources ranging from African sculpture to works by American sculptor Barbara Hepworth."

Sign up for our enewsletter to receive updates.
Learn more

Image actions

Share

Suggested Terms