The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco (FAMSF) have announced the acquisition of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1984–85), a bronze portrait bust of the legendary civil rights leader by trailblazing artist Elizabeth Catlett. The bronze portrait will be on public view for the first time at the de Young Museum beginning Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025.
About Elizabeth Catlett
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1915, Catlett’s artistic practice was profoundly influenced by the fact that she was the granddaughter of Africans liberated from enslavement. After growing up during the Great Depression, she was the first woman to earn an MFA (1940) in sculpture from the University of Iowa after first attending Howard University, where she graduated with honors, after being refused admission to Carnegie Institute of Technology due to her race.
After honing her skills in sculpture and printmaking while living in New York, Catlett found her permanent home in Mexico City where she studied wood sculpture and ceramics. She became deeply inspired by the socialist and populist ideals of Mexican art, and this exposure helped her to channel her activism into her images of African American working women and Black political subjects. Her civil rights activism was so well-known that she was declared an “undesirable alien” by the United States government, and was barred from entering the country. Catlett formally renounced her U.S. citizenship in 1962, which was not officially restored until 2002.
These activism themes run through the two other works by the artist in the FAMSF’s collection. A commissioned mahogany sculpture, Stepping Out (2000), was inspired by Catlett’s grandmother’s stories of enslavement and resistance, and the ideals of the Harlem Renaissance cultural movement. The strong figure embodies feminist ideals standing with one hand on her hip and the other outstretched, exuding confidence and liberation.
San Francisco and Martin Luther King Jr. have deep connections, so it’s fitting that this bronze will be seen by the public for the first time in this city.
The linoleum print I’m Sojourner Truth, I fought for the Rights of Women, as Well as Blacks (1947) is the sixth in a series of 15 linoleum cuts that Catlett created to commemorate Black women’s labor and to honor renowned heroines. Sojourner Truth, a runaway slave, abolitionist, author, and human rights activist was an original on so many fronts, it’s no surprise she was one of the first Americans to copyright her photos in her own name with the caption, “I sell the Shadow to Support the Substance.” In the print she gazes at the viewer, finger pointing upward to heaven, in an attitude of purpose and resolve.
A history of Dr. King’s bronze portrait
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. comes from the private collection of Reverend Douglas E. Moore, a classmate of King’s at Boston University in the early 1950s, who organized one of the earliest civil rights sit-ins, and his wife, Dr. Doris Hughes-Moore, the first Black woman to earn a doctorate of veterinary medicine degree from Purdue University.
The bronze portrait bust was originally created for the National Endowment for the Arts competition of a sculpture of Dr. King that would be displayed in the U.S. Capitol rotunda. Catlett was selected as one of three finalists.
San Francisco and Martin Luther King Jr. have deep connections, so it’s fitting that this bronze will be seen by the public for the first time in this city. King spent childhood summers with family in the Western Addition. He also spoke about the Montgomery bus boycott at the national NAACP convention at San Francisco’s Civic Auditorium in 1956; lobbied delegates at the 1964 Republican National Convention at the Cow Palace to support the Civil Rights Act; gave the speech for the consecration of the completed Grace Cathedral in 1965; and spoke at both Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, about eradicating poverty and hunger and about the nation’s role in Vietnam in 1967. San Francisco is also home to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and Fountain in Yerba Buena Gardens.
“Catlett’s sculptures and prints are notable for their consistent commitment to empowering their subjects — including people of color in general, and women in particular,” added Timothy Anglin Burgard, distinguished senior curator and Ednah Root, curator in charge of American art at the Fine Arts Museums. “Forty years after its creation, her majestic and commanding portrait of Dr. King retains its relevance for contemporary discourse regarding the ongoing struggles and sacrifices for civil rights.”
The artist and subject are united by a common purpose. The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. acquisition combines the strength of two champions for civil rights, Elizabeth Catlett and Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King’s beautifully articulated message about unity and equality still resonates in a struggling world. He was a visionary because he could describe a future we cannot always see, and his teachings are still a beacon guiding us to that brighter day.