Woman Fixing Her Hair
Elizabeth Catlett graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1935, where she studied under a number of notable artists, including Lois Maillou Jones, James Porter, James Wells, and James Herring. She then obtained a master's degree from the State University of Iowa, studying under painter Grant Wood and sculptor Henry Stinson. During the 1940s, Catlett taught art at a number of schools and began to exhibit with other African American artists who would go on to equally illustrative careers, including Robert Blackburn, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Archibald Motley, and Charles White. In 1946, Catlett moved to Mexico, establishing permanent residency there the following year and joining the Taller de Gráfica Popular, a printmaking workshop in Mexico City. Although best known for her wood and stone sculptures of archetypal black women rendered with abstract simplicity, she is also a talented printmaker and has produced lithographs and linocuts throughout her long career that celebrate the heroic lives of African American women.
Woman Fixing Her Hair is a late sculpture that embodies the characteristics of her best work. Its subject, a woman caught in the act of her daily toiletry, is familiar and empathetic. Melding human form and furniture into a seamless whole, the artist navigates a line between abstraction and realism, cubism and biomorphism. Her exquisite handling of natural material—the smoothly polished mahogany and luminous opals—conveys the beauty that she sees in her subject matter.
Woman Fixing Her Hair is a late sculpture that embodies the characteristics of her best work. Its subject, a woman caught in the act of her daily toiletry, is familiar and empathetic. Melding human form and furniture into a seamless whole, the artist navigates a line between abstraction and realism, cubism and biomorphism. Her exquisite handling of natural material—the smoothly polished mahogany and luminous opals—conveys the beauty that she sees in her subject matter.
Artwork Details
- Title: Woman Fixing Her Hair
- Artist: Elizabeth Catlett (American and Mexican, Washington, D.C. 1915–2012 Cuernavaca)
- Date: 1993
- Medium: Mahogany and opals
- Dimensions: 27 1/8 × 15 7/8 × 14 1/2 in., 23.5 lb. (68.9 × 40.3 × 36.8 cm, 10.7 kg)
- Classification: Sculpture
- Credit Line: Hortense and William A. Mohr Sculpture Purchase Fund, 1993
- Object Number: 1993.217
- Rights and Reproduction: © Estate of Elizabeth Catlett
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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Elizabeth Catlett
1954
Elizabeth Catlett
1975
Elizabeth Catlett
1946
Elizabeth Catlett
1946
Multiple artists/makers
1952 (published 1968–70)
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