Campesinos Mexicanos

Inscriptions

In graphite, on verso, "Campesino Mexicano"

Label

Born in the United States, African American artist Elizabeth Catlett permanently relocated to Mexico in 1947 to avoid U.S.-government persecution and imprisonment of progressive artists dedicated to social causes. She joined the print workshop Taller de Gráfica Popular, which elevated unions, agricultural workers, national literacy, and other movements for social justice.

Campesinos Mexicanos illustrates societal inequities, portraying an impoverished laborer who enters a sparse interior and shares his corn with two younger individuals. Catlett stated that “art is important only to the extent that it helps in the liberation of our people,” with “our people” referring to African Americans in the United States, as well as Black and Indigenous Mexicans in her adopted homeland.

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

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

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

Exhibition History

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 12 - July 22, 2022.

Provenance

Private collection; to Robert Whitman (1934-2020), Nashville, Tennessee; sold to Rachel Davis Fine Arts, Cleveland, Ohio, Sale 223, “The Robert Whitman Collection of American Block Prints,” September 25, 2021, Lot 74; to Keith Sheridan, LLC, Myrtle Beach, SC; sold to present collection, 2022.

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Subjects