Elizabeth Catlett. The power of the image.
As a kid in the 50s and 60s, I could walk into any home of my parents’ friends, politically progressive and more often than not Jewish, and see two framed prints on their walls. Of course, my parents had them as well.
One was by the African-American artist, Charles White. The other was by the African-American artist Elizabeth Catlett.
White’s was a lithograph of a man releasing a dove of peace. Catlett’s was a wood cut of a woman in a wide-brimmed hat.
They were heroic images. Faces of great dignity.
In ways quite profound, these two images helped to form my sense of the world as a child. Their ubiquity