Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012) was a deft sculptor, printmaker, and lifelong activist who used her art to amplify the experiences of Black women. Her legacy endures not only in her soaring artworks, but also in the lives and practices of those who follow in her path.

This conversation brings together printmaker and painter, LaToya Hobbs, whose work draws inspiration from Catlett’s artistic vision, and fashion model, writer, director, and Catlett’s granddaughter, Naima Mora, who is currently producing a film about Catlett’s life.

Their conversation will reflect on the personal, creative, and spiritual resonances of Catlett’s legacy—and on why Elizabeth Catlett is, as Hobbs and Mora say, “Everybody’s grandmother.”

This conversation is proudly presented as a New Paradigms program by the Leadership Advisory Committee, which supports the museum’s engagement with African American audiences. New Paradigms programs celebrate early-to-mid-career Black artists and thinkers who are impacting the field.

About the Speakers

LaToya M. Hobbs is an artist, wife, and mother of two from Little Rock, AR, who is currently living and working in Baltimore, MD. She received her B.A. in Painting from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and M.F.A. in Printmaking from Purdue University. Her work deals with figurative imagery that addresses the ideas of beauty, cultural identity, and womanhood as they relate to women of the African diaspora. Through her mixed media works, she explores the “matrix as art object,” combining key elements from both her painting and printmaking practices. Hobbs has exhibited work widely in venues including the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., Milwaukee Art Museum, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, SCAD Museum of Art; Frist Art Museum, and Sophia Wanamaker Galleries in San Jose, Costa Rica, among others.

Her work is housed in private and public collections such as the Harvard Art Museum, National Museum for Women in the Arts, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Art Gallery of Namibia, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Other accomplishments include a 2023 Distinguished Fellowship in Printmaking at the Penland School of Craft, a Studio Residency Grant at the Women’s Studio Workshop, a nomination for the 2022 Queen Sonja Print Award, a 2022 IFPDA Artist Grant and she was the recipient of the 2020 Janet and Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize. Hobbs is also a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a founding member of Black Women of Print, a collective whose vision is to make visible the narratives and works of Black women printmakers, past, present, and future.

Naima Mora was classically trained in ballet at the Dance Theater of Harlem and studied English at City College of New York. In 2005, she caught the eye of supermodel Tyra Banks and skyrocketed to fame by winning America’s Next Top Model. This victory instantly made her the face of CoverGirl Cosmetics, launching her onto international runways and into high-profile magazines like Elle and Vogue Italia.

Her book, Model Behavior (2013), has toured universities nationwide and ranges themes from personal empowerment to the transformative power of Buddhist theology and diverse spiritual foundations. In 2021, she penned and starred in the off-Broadway play, The Amazing Adventures of a Woman in Need, and she has since co-starred in BET’s Diarra from Detroit.

Mora has received the Spirit of Detroit Award, the California Legislature Assembly Certificate of Recognition, and the Key to the City of Cincinnati for her advocacy on behalf of HIV-diagnosed orphans in Guatemala and women’s empowerment initiatives.

She recently launched Naima Mora Productions with the aim of providing a platform for underrepresented voices and untold stories in film. Her first production project is a documentary in which she reimagines herself through the eyes of her grandmother, the artist Elizabeth Catlett.

Loren Wright is an assistant director of Interpretation at the Art Institute. She works with curators and other staff across the museum to tell more inclusive and accessible stories about art. Loren received her master’s degree in museum and exhibition studies from the University of Illinois Chicago

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Tags: Artist Conversation: LaToya Hobbs and Naima Mora on Elizabeth Catlett, Chicago, Elizabeth Catlett, LaToya Hobbs, Loop, Loren Wright, Naima Mora, The Art Institute of Chicago, Tyra Banks