Elizabeth Catlett - Biography

Biography

Catlett was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest of three children. Both of her parents were teachers.

She attended the Lucretia Mott Elementary School, Dunbar High School, and then Howard University where she studied design, printmaking and drawing. In an interview in December 1981 in Artist and Influence magazine, she stated that she changed her major to painting because of the influence of James A. Porter, and because there was no sculpture division at Howard at the time. She received her BS cum laude from Howard in 1935. She then worked as a high school teacher in North Carolina but left after two years, frustrated by the low teaching salaries for black people.

While living and working in Harlem, New York, she was briefly married to Charles White.

In 1947, she married Mexican artist Francisco Mora, and made Mexico her permanent home, later becoming a Mexican citizen. They have three sons, including film director Juan Mora. Her granddaughter, Naima Mora, was the Cycle 4 winner of the America's Next Top Model television show. Catlett's sculpture, Naima, is of Naima as a child.

After retiring in 1975, Catlett continued to be active in the Cuernavaca, Mexico art community.