On View
Not on viewObject number2011.69
Survivor
Artist
Elizabeth Catlett
(American, 1919-2012)
Date1983
Mediumlinoleum cut
Dimensionsimage: 9 1/4 × 7 1/2 in. (23.5 × 19.1 cm)
sheet: 11 1/4 × 10 in. (28.6 × 25.4 cm)
mat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
sheet: 11 1/4 × 10 in. (28.6 × 25.4 cm)
mat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
Credit LinePermanent Collection Fund
Exhibition History"Embracing Diverse Voices: 80 Years of African-American Art," KIA Traveling Exhibition, Bakersfield Museum of Art (Dec. 13, 2012 – Mar. 10, 2013).
"Copley to Kentridge: What's New in the Collection?," KIA (Sept.14 - Dec. 1, 2013).
"Lasting Legacy: A Collection for Kalamazoo," Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, Michigan (Sep. 6, 2014 - Jan. 4, 2015).
"Passion on Paper: Masterly Prints from the KIA Collection," March 17 - July 15, 2018, Groos Gallery
"Resilience: African American Artists as Agents of Change," at the KIA (September 14, 2019 - February 16, 2020)
"Resilience: African American Artists as Agents of Change," [Travel Version] at the Dennos Museum Center, Traverse City, MI (June 6, 2021 - August, 15, 2021)Label Text"Catlett’s primary focus was sculpture but she was also a pioneering African American printmaker. She championed women as her subjects and delved into issues central to human, social, cultural, and political rights. Survivor is based heavily on a 1937/38 photograph taken by Dorothea Lange, who documented the lives of the rural poor in the American South for the United States government during the Great Depression. While we might ponder the many situations of survival to which Catlett’s title could refer, Lange left no mistake when she titled her image, Ex-slave with a Long Memory.
Linoleum cut was a new medium in the 1920s and one in which Catlett worked regularly from the beginning of her career as a printmaker in Mexico in the 1940s. Linoleum cut is similar to woodcut, but less laborious. The feel of cutting a linoleum block can be as smooth as pushing a knife through butter when using high quality tools and materials (written by Nancy Sojka for Passion on Paper: Masterly Prints from the KIA Collection, 2018)."
