?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 100,000 - $ 150,000
ELIZABETH CATLETT (1915 - ) Nude Torso.
Carved mahogany sculpture, 1976. Approximately 330x140x100 mm; 13x5 1/2x4 inches (including base). Incised initials "EC" and date "76" at the edge of the right leg at the base, verso. With faintly incised initials "RM" on the left breast.
Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist; private New York collection.
Elizabeth Catlett has made sculpture in wood, mostly of the female nude, since the mid-1950s in Mexico. When she returned to sculpture, she began working in wood for the first time, studying with José L. Ruiz at the Esmeralda from 1955-1959. In Melanie Herzog's Elizabeth Catlett An American Artist in Mexico, Catlett describes her work as representations of women, black women and herself - "I am a black woman. I use my body in working. When I am bathing or dressing, I see and feel how my body looks and moves. I never do sculpture from a nude model...Mostly I watch women." The grain and finish of this mahogany sculpture convey both sensuality and natural movement. Catlett's sculptures are found in museum and private collections such as the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, and the collection of David C. Driskell. To our knowledge, this is the first known sculpture by Elizabeth Catlett to be offered at auction.
