Elizabeth Catlett
Artist, teacher, and social activist Elizabeth Catlett was best known for her work in printmaking and sculpture. Many of her works feature female faces. To Catlett, the face was “key to both racial identity and the inner essence of humanity.” This sculpture of a...
Loïs Mailou Jones
While she was influenced by the Harlem Renaissance and was also an art professor at Howard University, it was Lois Mailou Jones’ marriage to a Haitian artist and her time in Haiti in the 1950s and 60s that inspired the colors and themes of this piece. The bright...
Carrie Mae Weems
Weems’ provocative work explores how images shape our perceptions of class, gender and race. She photographed herself in this thoughtful, quiet pose to explore the place of African American women in the history of art. Though women have been painted in this...
Radcliffe Bailey
Radcliffe Bailey traveled to Africa in 2007 to further explore the roots of his African-American heritage. Boats, trunks and lanterns reference ideas of journey, passage and discovery—themes that have been part of Bailey’s work for a number of years. The artist had...
