Born in Washington, D.C., Elizabeth Catlett received her undergraduate degree from Howard University and graduate degree from the University of Iowa. She continued her art studies in sculpture and printmaking in Chicago and then New York City, where she also taught at the George Washington Carver School in Harlem. In 1946, Catlett received a prestigious Julius Rosenwald Fellowship that enabled her to live and work in Mexico City in 1946–1947. There Catlett frequented the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People’s Graphic Art Workshop), where she found a community of like-minded artists committed to engaging with issues of social justice through printmaking. Although Catlett briefly traveled to the United States in 1947, she returned to Mexico City that same year to continue her work and establish permanent residency in Mexico before ultimately becoming a Mexican citizen. In "Domestic Worker" and "For Colored Only", Catlett took up two causes that she would pursue in her 15-print Negro Woman series. "Domestic Worker" heroizes working-class African-Americans through the simple and dignified depiction of a standing woman who holds her cleaning implements with large, powerful hands. "For Colored Only' (at right) shows a despondent woman holding her head in her hands as she is confronted with signs that enforce racial segregation in the southern United States.