An established American contemporary artist, Elizabeth Catlett Mora’s art combines the basic elements of African traditions with those of west Mexico and U.S. African American cultures.

Catlett decided to become an artist while attending Dunbar High School, and won a competitive examination for a scholarship to the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, but was rejected because of her race.

Catlett went on to study at Howard University with such luminaries as Dr. Alain Leroy Locke, Professor James A. Porter, James Lesense Wells, and Lois Mailou Jones. With the passing of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, and the oppressive McCarthy hearings, the loyalty oath and other such irritants drove artists into seclusion by the hundreds. By 1947, Catlett decided to retreat to Mexico where she had previously spent time while working on a Rosenfeld Fellowship.

Her artistic talent has won Catlett significant recognition as an artist in two very different cultures. Catlett’s prints have been exhibited all over the world. She has received grants and fellowships that have allowed her to study in England, East Germany, China, and the Soviet Union.

The work of Elizabeth Catlett is in many museums, including the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico City, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Museum of American Art in Washington, DC.

Catlett continues to reside in Mexico with her husband, artist Victor MORA, and their sons.