Sharecropper
Elizabeth Catlett, American and Mexican, 1915 - 2012
about 1952 (key block); 1968 (color blocks and this impression)
Color linocut (linoleum cut) on medium weight, cream, Japanese laid paper
Edition of about 60
Image: 18 × 17 in. (45.7 × 43.2 cm)
Sheet: 22 × 21 in. (55.9 × 53.3 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Mrs. Harvey P. Hood W'18 Fund
© 2019 Catlett Mora Family Trust / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
2012.62
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Research Area
Not on view
Inscriptions
In graphite, lower left margin: Sharecropper; signed in block, lower right: EC
Label
Perhaps her best-known work, Elizabeth Catlett’s Sharecropper looks out into an unseen landscape, leaving only the title and her garments to indicate who she may be. Reflecting Catlett’s longstanding solidarity with working-class women, the subject of this portrait is intentionally viewed from below, presented as a dignified figure, someone to look up to. Sharecropper succinctly captures the afterlife of chattel slavery among Black tenant farmers during the Reconstruction era of the United States, when the exploitation of racialized labor prevented millions of formerly enslaved people from becoming economically independent.
What is the relationship between land ownership and the ability to claim an American identity? Who is able to access the “American dream,” and to whom is access denied?
From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art
Course History
ARTH 2, Introduction to the History of Art II, Joy Kenseth, Mary Coffey, Winter 2014
ARTH 17, The Power of Place: Urban and Rural Images in American Art, 1900-1945, Sarah Powers, Winter 2014
WRIT 5, Human Rights, Global to Local, Peggy Baum, Winter 2014
ARTH 17, The Power of Place: Urban and Rural Images in American Art, 1900-1945, Sarah Powers, Winter 2014
ARTH 71, The "American Century": Modern Art in the United States, Mary Coffey, Winter 2015
ARTH 71, The "American Century": Modern Art in the United States. Mary Coffey, Winter 2015
AAAS 91.1, ENGL 53.18, The Harlem Renaissance, J. Martin Favor, Winter 2015
SART 76, Senior Seminar I, Jennifer Caine, Winter 2019
ARTH 40.04, LACS 30.09, Mexicanidad: Constructing and Dismantling Mexican National Identity, Mary Coffey, Winter 2019
AAAS 88.19, Contemporary African-American Artists, Michael Chaney, Summer 2021
ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022
GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022
ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022
ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022
ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022
ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022
ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022
SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022
Exhibition History
This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–April 11, 2022.
Publication History
John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 178, ill. plate no. 109.
Published References
Herzon, Melanie Anne. Elizabeth Catlett: In the Image of the People. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago and New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005, plate 17. Hampton University 25
Provenance
The artist; sold to unidentified art dealer; sold to Charles M. Young Fine Prints & Drawings, LLC, Portland, Connecticut; sold to present collection, 2012.
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