Sale 2649 - Lot 26

ELIZABETH CATLETT (1915 - 2012)

Restaurant Patron (For Colored Only).

Lithograph on cream wove paper, 1946. 232x168 mm; 9x6 inches, wide margins. Proof, aside from an edition of 10. Signed and dated in pencil, lower margin.

Restaurant Patron is a significant print by Elizabeth Catlett. According to Melanie Herzog in her Elizabeth Catlett: An African American Artist in Mexico, this was the first lithograph Catlett created at the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP) in Mexico City in 1946. It was produced at the same time she printed her important 1946-47 series of linoleum cuts, The Negro Woman.

Melanie Herzog illustrates an impression titled For Colored Only and numbered 5/10 in the collection of the artist; Herzog also notes this print is known as Pensador. Other impressions dated 1946 and with the TGP ink stamp are in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art and the University Galleries of the University of San Diego.

This is the only second impression of this very scarce print to come to auction. The other impression sold at Swann Galleries on February 16, 2012 was also dated 1947 and titled Restaurant Patron. Herzog pp. 99-100.