Sharecropper

Elizabeth Catlett, American and Mexican, 1915 - 2012

Share

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

Print

Research Area

Print

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

Studio Art 27.01, Printmaking I: Relief Printmaking, Abra Ancliffe, Fall 2023

African and African American Studies 7.01, Picturing African American History, Michael Chaney, Spring 2024

Studio Art 27.01, Printmaking I, Abra Ancliffe, Spring 2024

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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