Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday commemorating the Civil Rights leader and peace activist, has taken place on the third Monday of January since 1983. This year, it falls on the same day as the inauguration of president-elect Donald Trump, whose inflammatory racist rhetoric, unabashed enabling of White supremacism, and attacks on anti-discrimination efforts have exacerbated racial tensions across the United States.
At the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, a public institution comprising the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor, a newly announced acquisition centers King’s legacy of resisting racial discrimination. “Bust of Martin Luther King, Jr.” (1990) by African-American and Mexican sculptor Elizabeth Catlett is now on public display for the first time since its creation.
Catlett’s bronze portrait of the social justice leader hails from the private collection of the late civil rights activist Reverend Douglas E. Moore, who was not only an early participant in the historical student sit-in movement, but also a classmate of King’s at Boston University in the early 1950s.
Notably, Catlett created the bust in 1984–85 for a competition the National Endowment for the Arts held to commission a statue of King for the Capitol’s Statuary Hall.
Catlett’s rendition, which ultimately lost to a design submitted by Massachusetts artist John Woodrow Wilson, is now on view indefinitely at San Francisco’s de Young Museum. It’s displayed alongside other works exploring the civil rights movement, such as Jack Levine’s painting “Birmingham ’63” (1963) and Thornton Dial’s assemblage work “Blood and Meat: Survival For The World” (1992).
De Young Museum curator Timothy Burgard told Hyperallergic that the bust is on display on a pedestal that puts the work at eye level, corresponding to King’s real height of five-foot-seven. It joins Catlett’s linoleum print “I’m Sojourner Truth, I Fought for the Rights of Women, as Well as Blacks” (1947) and mahogany sculpture “Stepping Out” (2000) in the collection.
“ Catlett’s [sculpture of King] is fierce, powerful, and strong,” Burgard said, adding that Catlett included subtle references to his role as a minister in the inclusion of a robe.
“In the era in which we all live today, that fierce warrior for social economic justice probably speaks even more to a contemporary generation in the middle of the Black Lives Matter movement and other ongoing struggles.”
