- Born:
- September 7, 1917, Atlantic City, New Jersey, U.S.
- Died:
- June 9, 2000, Seattle, Washington (aged 82)
- Awards And Honors:
- National Medal of Arts (1990)
- Notable Works:
- āThe Migration of the American Negroā
Jacob Lawrence
-
Who was Jacob Lawrence?
Jacob Lawrence (1917ā2000) was a 20th-century American painter celebrated for portraying Black life and history with vivid, stylized realism. His works, often in series, used tempera or gouache on paper or cardboard.
Lawrence's family moved to Harlem after a period in foster care. He studied art under Charles H. Alston and met Harlem Renaissance figures like Augusta Savage and Langston Hughes. His style, marked by abstract figures and flat primary colors, emerged early, documenting Harlem life.
Lawrence gained recognition at 24 with The Migration of the American Negro, a series jointly purchased by the Phillips Collection and MoMA, making him the first African American artist in MoMA's collection. He taught and continued to paint until his death in 2000, leaving a legacy of powerful representations of the African American experience.
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What kind of art did Jacob Lawrence create?
Jacob Lawrence was a 20th-century American painter known for portraying scenes of Black life and history with vivid, stylized realism. His works, often done in series, frequently used tempera or gouache on paper or cardboard. Early in his career, the abstract figures and flat primary colors that would become his hallmarks were evident in works documenting life in Harlem. In the late 1930s, he began creating small-scale tempera paintings on Black history, including series on Toussaint LāOuverture, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman. Lawrence also made works on the civil rights movement in the 1960s and painted scenes of local life during visits to Nigeria.
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What themes or stories did Jacob Lawrence often show in his paintings?
Jacob Lawrence was renowned for his series of paintings that captured Black life and history using stylized realism. His work often portrayed scenes of Black life, struggles, and historical events, rendered in vivid colors and dynamic compositions.
Lawrence created several series of small-scale tempera paintings on Black history, including works on the lives of Toussaint LāOuverture, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman. His series The Migration of the American Negro narrates the story of the Great Migration. In the 1960s, he created works about the civil rights movement and scenes of local life he observed during visits to Nigeria.
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Why is Jacob Lawrence's 'Migration Series' important?
Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series is a set of 60 paintings with captions that narrates the Great Migration, the relocation of millions of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North and West during the 20th century.
Painted in tempera on small panels, the series uses abstract figures and flat primary colors, which became hallmarks of Lawrence's style. In 1941, the series brought Lawrence recognition at the age of 24 when it was shown at the Downtown Gallery in New York City.
The Phillips Collection and the Museum of Modern Art jointly purchased the series, splitting the panels between them. Lawrence thus became the first African American artist represented in MoMAās collection.
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How did Jacob Lawrence's background influence his artwork?
Jacob Lawrence's art was deeply influenced by his background as the son of Southern migrants who moved north during the Great Migration. After his parents separated, he and his siblings relocated to Harlem, where he attended free art classes and workshops, meeting artists and writers associated with the Harlem Renaissance, like Augusta Savage, Aaron Douglas, and Langston Hughes.
His early works documented life in Harlem, and he created series of small-scale tempera paintings on Black history, such as works on Toussaint LāOuverture, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman. Lawrence's experiences and surroundings shaped his artistic style and subject matter, reflecting the realities of Black life and history.
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What impact did Jacob Lawrence have on American art and society?
Jacob Lawrence, a 20th-century American painter, significantly impacted American art and society through his vivid portrayals of Black life and history. His series, like The Migration of the American Negro, brought him early recognition and broke barriers, making him the first African American artist represented in MoMA's collection.
Lawrence's art also tackled civil rights and desegregation, reflecting and engaging with pressing social issues. His work is displayed in major museums, ensuring his representations of the African American experience continue to resonate.
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Jacob Lawrence (born September 7, 1917, Atlantic City, New Jersey, U.S.ādied June 9, 2000, Seattle, Washington) was an American painter of the 20th century whose works, frequently done in series using tempera or gouache on paper or cardboard, portray scenes of Black life and history with vivid stylized realism.
Lawrence was the son of Southern migrants. After his parents separated, he and his siblings were put into foster care, and after three years they moved to the Harlem section of New York City to live with their mother. Lawrence attended free art classes at Utopia Childrenās House, where he showed a talent for creating lively decorative masks, a motif that would later figure strongly in his narrative painting. At the Harlem Art Workshop (sponsored by the Works Progress Administration [WPA]) in 1932, he studied under Charles H. Alston. Through Alston, he met artists and writers associated with the Harlem Renaissance, including Augusta Savage, Aaron Douglas, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, and Richard Wright.
The abstract figures and flat primary colours that would become the hallmarks of Lawrenceās style are already evident in his early works, which document life in Harlem. In the late 1930s he began several series of small-scale tempera paintings on Black history, including 41 works on the life of Toussaint LāOuverture (1938), leader of the Haitian independence movement; 32 pieces on Frederick Douglass (1939); and 31 paintings on Harriet Tubman (1940).
Soon afterward, Lawrence received a grant from the Julius Rosenwald Fund and started working on The Migration of the American Negro, a series of 60 paintings and accompanying captions that narrate the story of the Great Migration. The series was shown at the Downtown Gallery in New York City in 1941, bringing Lawrence recognition at the age of 24. Both the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City sought to obtain the series, and the two institutions ultimately purchased it jointly, splitting the pieces between them. Lawrence thus became the first African American artist represented in MoMAās collection. That same year Lawrence married artist Gwendolyn Knight, whom he had met some years earlier while working for the WPA.
After World War II, wherein he served in the U.S. Coast Guard, Lawrence joined the faculty at Black Mountain College in North Carolina at the invitation of Josef Albers. In 1948 Lawrence received a commission from Hughes to illustrate his latest poetry collection, One-Way Ticket, and Lawrence obliged by creating a series of brush-and-ink works revisiting his Migration series. By the following year, Lawrence was suffering from exhaustion and depression, and he sought treatment at Hillside Hospital in Queens, New York City. He stayed more than a year and completed the Hospital series (1950).
In the 1960s Lawrence made works on the civil rights movement, and he visited Nigeria(1962, 1964), where he painted scenes of local life. He also continued to teach at various schools and colleges, including Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York (1956ā70), and the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture (1968), an artist summer residency program in Maine. In 1971 he became a professor of art at the University of Washington in Seattle, from which he retired in 1986. Lawrenceās later works included a powerful series on the struggles of desegregation as well as numerous commissioned pieces. He continued to paint until a few weeks before his death, from cancer, in 2000.
Lawrence was awarded the National Medal of Arts by U.S. Pres. George H.W. Bush in 1990. His work was shown frequently throughout his life at galleries and at major retrospectives. In addition to MoMA and the Phillips Collection, many other prominent American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Seattle Art Museum, boast his work in their permanent collections. In the 21st century Lawrenceās forthright representations of the joys and sorrows of the African American experience continued to reverberate with audiences.
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