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Copyright by Letitia Hopkins 2014 Copyright by Letitia Hopkins 2014 The Thesis committee for Letitia Hopkins Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: For My People ~ Margaret Walker ~ Lithographs by Elizabeth Catlett: A Consideration APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: ________________________________________________________________ Edward Chambers ________________________________________________________________ Cherise Smith For My People ~ Margaret Walker ~ Lithographs by Elizabeth Catlett: A Consideration by Letitia Hopkins, B.S.; M.A. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2014 Abstract For My People ~ Margaret Walker ~ Lithographs by Elizabeth Catlett: A Consideration Letitia Hopkins, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2014 Supervisor: Edward Chambers This thesis examines the 1992 Limited Edition Collection prints artist Elizabeth Catlett (American, 1915 – 2012) created to illustrate Margaret Walker's poem, For My People. The author analyzes Catlett’s images in terms of the ways in which they both document as well as reflect on the Black experience, and the ways in which her practice both anticipated and chimed with, the Black Arts Movement. Alongside a consideration of Catlett and her work, the author discusses the related significance of Margaret Walker (American, 1915 – 1998) and her poem, For My People, and the ways in which it was in so many ways the perfect poem for Catlett to illustrate. iv Table of Contents Chapter One: An Introduction.............................................................................1 Chapter Two: The Lives of Elizabeth Catlett and Margaret Walker, in Brief.....8 Chapter Three: Catlett’s Images for Margaret Walker’s For My People Folio...18 Chapter Four: Elizabeth Catlett, the Black Arts Movement, and its Legacies....57 Chapter Five: Conclusion....................................................................................68 Appendix: For My People...................................................................................74 Bibliography.........................................................................................................76 v Chapter One – An Introduction This thesis will examine prints made by American artist Elizabeth Catlett (1915 – 2012) for Margaret Walker’s For My People. The portfolio of prints I will be examining is one of eighteen signed artists’ portfolios in the Limited Editions Club Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin. According to the Harry Ransom Center’s description of the prints, and the website for the Limited Edition Club, they were commissioned specifically to illustrate Margaret Walker’s For My People, a critically acclaimed volume of poetry first published in 1942 by Walker (1915– 1998), an American poet and writer. The Limited Editions Club was founded in 1929 by George Macy to publish fine, illustrated books in limited editions for member subscriber.1 When Sidney Shiff purchased the Limited Editions Club in 1979, he raised the overall quality of the books and began offering signed artist portfolios to members. The prints I will be studying are part of this later tradition. From 1929 – 1985, the Limited Editions Club published 10 – 12 titles a year, most titles being illustrated classics, of which 1500 copies were published. From the mid-1980s to 2009, drastic changes were enacted and the Limited Editions Club restructured its output to 3 – 4 titles a year, with a relatively modest print run of several hundred. Walker’s illustrated text was issued during this later time period. Due to this 1 Description of Limited Editions Club Collection, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin 1 decrease in publication output, the prices of folios such as these increased dramatically.2 It was during this time that the publications issued by the Limited Editions Club also became much larger. This illustrated edition was a 50th Anniversary Publication Edition, commemorating the half-century since Walker’s For My People had first been published.3 Elizabeth Catlett created 5 lithographs for the illustration of the text but the portfolio contained 6 prints. My thesis sets out to argue that Elizabeth Catlett used these prints to make a political statement by turning the indexical experiences of Margaret Walker’s poetry into iconic images. Walker’s book of poetry, For My People, is broken into three different sections that vary in theme. The first section deals with home and belonging, the second with folklore and fables and the third with travel and exploration. The title poem is what has been illustrated in the Limited Edition Club publication. The prints correspond with the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth and tenth stanzas of the poem.4 Although Catlett’s prints for this edition were made several decades after the Black Arts and Black Power Movements, I intend to explore the intersection they have 2 For My People is currently selling for $1500 from the Limited Editions Club and ranges from $950 - $2024.22 on Abe Books. 3 It should be noted that several other prominent African American artists were commissioned to illustrate other folios issued by the Limited Editions Club. For example, Faith Ringgold illustrated Dr, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter From Birmingham City Jail, with a series of eight serigraph prints; Lois Mailou Jones illustrated Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Poems with silkscreen prints. Such pairings however, were not always based on what one might describe as raced empathy. Benny Andrews illustrated Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor with etchings, and Ellsworth Kelly illustrated Un Coup de Dés Jamais N’Abolira Le Hasard by Stéphane Mallarmé with lithographs. 4 Singing Their Songs corresponds with the first stanza of the poem; Playmates, the third; To Marry, the fifth; Walking Blindly, the seventh; All the People, the ninth and A Second Generation corresponds with the tenth. 2 with the text and the tenets of the Black Arts Movement. It should be noted however, that various versions of a number of Catlett’s prints for For My People, were produced over the course of the preceding half a century or so. Black women artists, have, over the course of centuries, been engaged in making art that was both political and socially conscious in relation to the Black experience, and Elizabeth Catlett is an exemplary example of such an artist. By engaging this text (For My People) written in the mid 20th century, by a female poet and the subsequently illustrated with prints originally made in the decades of the mid 20th century by a female artist, I seek to advance a notable example of the ways in which Catlett demonstrated a profound empathy with both the Black Arts and Black Power Movements.5 Ron Karenga6 stated that, “Black art must expose the enemy, praise the people and support the revolution.”7 This phrase is what will guide me in my analysis of Elizabeth Catlett and the ways in which established a fascinating, but relatively unexplored, proximity to the Black Arts Movement. Though sentiments such as Karenga’s had a particular application to the field of literature, they also had a notable application to the visual arts. Bold statements such as Karenga’s give rise to a number of 5 Walker’s For My People book of poems was published and re-issued a number of times and can be viewed in the tradition of social narratives that have shaped and defined much of African American literary practices. 6 Ron Karenga (now known as Maulana Ndabezitha Karenga) was born in 1941 and became one of the leading architects and exponents of what became known as the Black Arts Movement. Still active at the present time, he is perhaps best known as the creator of the pan-African and African-American holiday of Kwanzaa. 7 Ron Karenga, “Black Cultural Nationalism” The Black Aesthetic edited by Addison Gayle, Doubleday, Garden City, NewYork, 1971: 33 3 questions, which this thesis seeks to explore, by way of its examination of Catlett’s prints. Questions such as, “Who is defined as the enemy?” “How might artists set about praising the people?” and once the “revolution” is defined, “How might artists undertake to support the revolution?” The purpose of the Black Arts Movement was to ensure that the artists of the Black community played a crucial part in the African-American struggle in its various dimensions. I would like to follow in the tradition of August Wilson8 by saying that for my purposes, the Black community was birthed out of slavery and has experienced multiple and ongoing overt and institutionalized oppression. In this respect, the challenges and struggles faced by Black artists, over many decades, are part and parcel of a wider Black struggle. Within her art, Catlett has taken the indexical and created iconic images that speak to the multitude of Black experiences in the United States of America. Margaret Walker created a book of poetry based on her experiences as a Black person and the bringing together of the works of Catlett and Walker creates a dynamic representation of Black struggle and redemption in America. Social and racial activism was very much evident in Elizabeth Catlett’s practice. Instead of creating “art for art’s sake,” she used many of her works for the uplift of her 8 See August Wilson’s speech “The Ground on Which I Stand”, Theatre Communications Group, 2001. In this speech Wilson places his theatrical practices and productions within the concepts of Americaness, traditions of Black cultural expression and exclusion and oppression Black Americans have faced in this country. 4 people9 and to make social and political statements. At the time she created the plates for the Limited Edition prints, she was living in Mexico. Indeed, Catlett had made her home in Mexico many decades previously. The following chapter, consisting for the most part of a biographical sketch of Catlett, will touch on her involvement in American politics (and the fallout) while she was living in Mexico.
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