In early 2021, the McClung Museum will debut a temporary exhibition called Women’s Work, guest curated by Emma Grace Thompson. Thompson served as the Arts & Culture Curatorial Graduate Research Assistant before finishing her Master’s degree in History last Spring. The exhibition will showcase artwork from the McClung’s collection that was created by women. Included will be the powerful print by Elizabeth Catlett titled To Marry.
Elizabeth Catlett was an African American artist whose unparalleled body of politically charged sculpture and graphics mark her as one of the most notable American artists of the 20th century. Catlett was unique in her view on the purpose of art by determining to make her art give voice to the enduring dignity, strength, and achievements of black women and other disenfranchised peoples.
To Marry is based on the following verse from the 1942 poem For My People by Margaret Walker (here is a reading of the poem in its entirety).
For the boys and girls who grew in spite of these things to
be man and woman, to laugh and dance and sing and
play and drink their wine and religion and success, to
marry their playmates and bear children and then die
of consumption and anemia and lynching;