Conversation: The Life, Work and Legacy of Elizabeth Catlett, 1915-2012

The important and very influential artist Elizabeth Catlett died on Monday in her home in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where she had lived for six decades. She was 96. Catlett was among the most important African-American artists of the 20th century, emerging after the Harlem Renaissance and World War II and working right up into her 90s. Her best-known works depict African-American women as strong figures and address head-on racial and social inequalities in America. Earlier Thursday, I talked to Lowery Stokes Sims, a curator at the Museums of Arts and Design and who knew Catlett form more than 30 years, about her life, work and legacy: