SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco announced the acquisition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1984-1985), a bronze portrait bust of the legendary Civil Rights leader by trailblazing artist Elizabeth Catlett. The Fine Arts Museums hold the most significant survey collection of American art in the western United States and the portrait bust will be on public view at the de Young museum beginning Saturday, January 18th, 2025.
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“Elizabeth Catlett is among the most consequential American artists of the 20th century, whose groundbreaking sculptures and prints bear witness to her lifelong advocacy for Black Americans and other historically marginalized communities,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “We are immensely proud to make Catlett’s extraordinary portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. accessible to de Young audiences. The bust encompasses a fascinating history that will significantly expand our ability to speak to Dr. King’s enduring impact on American life, and the politics involved in how he has been memorialized in public art.”
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. This bronze portrait bust, first created by Catlett for a 1984-1985 competition to commemorate the Civil Rights leader in the rotunda of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, will be on view to the public for the first time since its creation. Catlett’s portrait bust joins two other works by the artist in the Fine Arts Museums’ collection: a commissioned mahogany sculpture Stepping Out (2000) and the linoleum print I’m Sojourner Truth, I Fought for the Rights of Women, as Well as Blacks (1947). At the de Young, the sculpture will be prominently displayed near Jack Levine's painting, Birmingham '63 (1963), which commemorates the pivotal protests led by Dr. King and other civil rights leaders in Birmingham, Alabama.
“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."
Martin Luther King Jr. had deep San Francisco connections. As a child, he spent summers with extended 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.
The acquisition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a museum purchase, made possible by the Barbro Osher Sculpture Garden Acquisition Fund.
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