Many artists who sought social justice turned to printmaking as an effective means of informing the public and promoting change. Catlett studied printmaking in Mexico City, where the great public murals by artists such as Diego Rivera impressed on her art’s powerful social function. Depicting a female organizer and four workers (one of whom reads a printed leaflet), this linocut is a vivid testament to the struggle for labor organization and solidarity in the industrial tumult of the twentieth century. The print is one in a set of fifteen entitled The Negro Woman that Catlett created as a chronicle of the oppression, resistance, and survival of African American women.
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Artwork Details
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Title:My Role Has Been Important in the Struggle to Organize the Unorganized, from “The Negro Woman” series
Artist:Elizabeth Catlett (American and Mexican, Washington, D.C. 1915–2012 Cuernavaca)
Date:1947
Medium:Linocut
Dimensions:12 × 18 3/4 in. (30.5 × 47.6 cm)
Classification:Prints
Credit Line:Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 1999
Accession Number:1999.529.36
Inscription: Inscribed, signed, and dated (below image, in graphite): My role has been important in the struggle / to organize the unorganized. E Catlett 1947
[Sragow Gallery, New York, until 1991; sold on October 1, 1991 to Williams]; Reba and Dave Williams, New York (1991–99; their gift to MMA)
Washington D.C. Barnett Aden Gallery. "Paintings, Sculpture and Prints of the Negro Woman by Elizabeth Catlett," December 1947–January 1948, no. 24 (as "My Role Has Been Important in the Struggle to Organize the Unorganized") [possibly this edition].
Newark Museum, held jointly at the Equitable Gallery, New York. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," December 10, 1992–February 28, 1993, no. 17.
Long Beach Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," June 4–August 8, 1993, no. 17.
Cambridge, England. Fitzwilliam Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," October 5–December 19, 1993, no. 17.
Albany. New York State Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," January 5–March 13, 1994, no. 17.
New Haven. Yale University Art Gallery. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," April 7–June 12, 1994, no. 17.
Louisville. Speed Art Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," July 12–September 4, 1994, no. 17.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," October 9–December 4, 1994, no. 17.
Baltimore Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," January 4–February 26, 1995, no. 17.
Charleston. Gibbes Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," March 26–May 21, 1995, no. 17.
Miami Beach. Bass Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," June 18–August 13, 1995, no. 17.
Little Rock. Arkansas Arts Center. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," September 10–November 5, 1995, no. 17.
Mobile, Ala. Fine Arts Museum of the South. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," December 3, 1995–January 28, 1996, no. 17.
Brooklyn Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," February 25–April 22, 1996, no. 17.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," May 17–July 14, 1996, no. 17.
Dallas Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," August 9–October 6, 1996, no. 17.
Saint Louis Art Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," November 1, 1996–January 2, 1997, no. 17.
Atlanta. High Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," January 31–March 30, 1997, no. 17.
Hamilton, N. Y. Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University. "Life Impressions: 20th-Century African American Prints from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 10–November 4, 2001 (pp. 61–62).
Bronx Museum of the Arts. "Stargazers: Elizabeth Catlett in Conversation with...," February 6–May 29, 2011, unnumbered cat. (p. 73).
Hannes Meyer, ed. TGP Mexico: El Taller de Gráfica Popular, doce años de obra artistica colectiva. The Workshop for Popular Graphic Art, a Record of Twelve Years of Collective Work. Mexico City, 1949, ill. no. 523, p. 67, calls it "Negro Organizer".
Samella Lewis. The Art of Elizabeth Catlett. Claremont, Calif., 1984, p. 186 (unknown edition), calls it "My Role Has Been Important in the Struggle to Organize the Unorganized" and dates it 1946–47.
Linda Duke. The Black Woman in America: Prints by Elizabeth Catlett. Exh. cat., Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Urbana-Champaign, 1993, unpaginated, no. 9, ill. (not this edition, lent courtesy of Lloyd G. Trotter, Plainville, Conn.), calls it "My Role Has Been Important in Organizing the Unorganized" from the series "The Black Woman in America" (1946–47).
Reba and Dave Williams inAlone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–40s by African-American Artists; From the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams. Exh. cat., Newark Museum. New York, 1993, pp. 30, 46, no. 17.
Lowery Stokes Sims inAlone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–40s by African-American Artists; From the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams. Exh. cat., Newark Museum. New York, 1993, p. 4.
Martha Kearns. "Catlett, Elizabeth (1919–)." North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Ed. Jules Heller and Nancy Heller. 1995, p. 118, mentions this work as part of "I am the Black Woman" series (1946–47).
Melanie Anne Herzog inFor My People: The Art of Elizabeth Catlett. Ed. Midori Yoshimoto. Exh. cat., New Jersey City University Galleries. Jersey City, 2006, pp. 13, 15, 46, no. 12 (not this edition, collection of Reverend Douglass Moore and Dr. Doris Hughes-Moore, Washington D.C.), notes this work is part of "The Negro Woman Series" and dates it 1947.
Daniel Schulman inA Force for Change: African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund. Ed. Daniel Schulman. Exh. cat., Spertus Museum. Chicago, 2009, pp. 68–69, 120, 152, colorpl. 44 (not this edition, Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.), notes this work is part of "The Negro Woman Series" (1946–47).
Lei Lisa Sun in Pamela Franks and Robert E. Steele. Embodied: Black Identities in American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven, 2010, p. 59, ill. (color) (not this edition), calls it "My Role Has Been Important in the Struggle to Organize the Unorganized," from the series "The Black Woman".
Anita Bateman. "Narrative and Seriality in Elizabeth Catlett's Prints." Journal of Black Studies 47 (April 2016), p. 262, calls it "My role has been important in the struggle to organize the unorganized.," from "The Negro Woman" series (1946–47).
The artist reprinted the series of 15 linoleum cuts in 1989 with the updated title "The Black Woman."
Elizabeth Catlett (American and Mexican, Washington, D.C. 1915–2012 Cuernavaca)
1947
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