Existing comment:
Ethel Rosenberg, 1915-1953
Born New York City
For artist Elizabeth Catlett, the evidence against convicted (and eventually executed) spy Ethel Rosenberg during her controversial trial seemed far weaker than the case against her husband, Julius. Catlett made this drawing of Rosenberg for a protest poster published by the Taller de Gráfica Popular, a Mexican printmaking collective dedicated to social causes. The role of women as mothers, leaders, and survivors had been a potent theme for Catlett throughout her career, and her forceful portrait of Rosenberg was intended to be a confrontational feminist statement. Copying the likeness from a newspaper photograph, Catlett straightened the head, turned it slightly for a more frontal pose, and singled out the face alone. By transforming the news photo into an iconic image, she universalized Rosenberg's sacrifices. "Art," Catlett once wrote, "can provoke thought and prepare us for change."
Elizabeth Catlett, 1952 |