Feb 19, 2008 - Sale 2136

Sale 2136 - Lot 39

Price Realized: $ 24,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
ELIZABETH CATLETT (1915 - )
Negro Woman.

Lithograph on cream wove paper, 1945. 306x220 mm; 12 1/8x8 5/8 inches, wide margins. Signed, titled, dated and dedicated "With love to Gwen and Dick" in pencil, lower margin. Printed by the artist at the Artist Students League, New York. A very good impression of this very scarce, early print.

We have found only 3 other impressions of this print, 2 in private collections, 1 sold at auction at Swann Galleries on February 6, 2007.

Elizabeth Catlett's first foray into printmaking was in lithography which she studied with Harry Sternberg at the Art Students League during 1944-45. This work is one of her earliest known prints; there are only a few examples of lithographs from the previous year. Negro Woman shows the artist's sculptural depiction of volume with a developed sense of African-American identity.