Elizabeth Catlett created this commanding image of Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross, c. 1820–1913), the Underground Railroad conductor and abolitionist, pointing the way to freedom. Notice how the outsize figure of Tubman dominates the image, and how the bold and energetic black lines of the print suggest the perilous, fraught conditions Tubman and those under her protection navigated.
Catlett, who was the granddaughter of people who were enslaved, often focused on issues of Black and women’s history in her art. Her artistic influences included the social activism of Mexican muralists Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, which she learned about as a student at Howard University in Washington, DC. Another teacher, the American painter Grant Wood, encouraged her to draw upon what she knew best. “Of course, it was my own people,“ she noted.
At the time Catlett made this work, the civil rights movement was gaining ground in the United States. Why might Catlett have chosen to depict Harriet Tubman? What do Catlett’s artistic choices reveal about her perception of Tubman?
Elizabeth Catlett, Taller de Gráfica Popular, Untitled (Harriet Tubman), 1953, linocut, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Florian Carr Fund and Gift of the Print Research Foundation, 2008.115.37