Famous Artist’s Handwritten Letters Reveal Influence of Everglades and Cuban Refugees on Work
Celebrating Universal Letter Writing Week: January 10th, 2021 to January 16th, 2021

12/23/20

By: I. S.

Persian Queen Atossa authored the first handwritten letter around 500 BCE. Since then, handwritten letters have been used as communication between friends and family, business relations and even to organize historic revolutions.

With the second week of January being Universal Letter Writing Week, MDPLS Digital Collections is highlighting handwritten missives including some from famous artist, Elizabeth Catlett. In the letters, Catlett explains to MDPLS Art Services Manager Barbara Young how “art and artists in Miami” inspired her to work and how exhibits she saw on a trip offered insights into the Everglades and Cuban refugees. Catlett exhibited her work at Main Library in 1984.

Catlett (1915-2012) was an important African American and Mexican sculptor and printer. Her works focused on social and political issues relating to gender and the black experience. Her artwork can be seen at many major museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City, as well as the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.

In the following two letters, dated exactly one year apart, you can observe the friendship between Catlett and Young, as well as Catlett’s beautiful cursive penmanship.

Letter from Elizabeth Catlett to Barbara Young and Robert Huff
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Letter from Elizabeth Catlett to Barbara Young
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