Jacob Lawrence, Painter (September 7, 1917

Let’s take a look at one of the most prolific painting artists of the American/African-American experience: Jacob Lawrence.

Lawrence called his style of painting “dynamic cubism“, but also noted that his work was influenced more by the shapes and colors of Harlem rather than the French art style. He is quoted as saying, “Even in my mother’s home, people of my mother’s generation would decorate their homes in all sorts of color.”

He was introduced to art in his early teens when his mother enrolled him in after-school classes at an arts and crafts settlement house in Harlem (Utopia Children’s Center). He dropped out of high school at 16 and worked in a laundromat and a printing plant while attending classes at the Harlem Art Workshop.

He began attending Harlem Community Art Center, led by the sculptor Augusta Savage. Savage helped Lawrence get a scholarship to the American Artists School and also a paid position with the Works Progress Administration, which was established during the Great Depression by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Lawrence is known for his paintings and their narratives of African-American history and historical figures. HAt the age of 21 he created 41 paintings of the Haitian general Toussaint L’Ouverture, followed by a series on the life of Harriet Tubman (1938–39) and another on Frederick Douglass (1939–40).

He gained national recognition with his 60-panel The Migration Series, at the age of 23, depicting the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North.

He created another series of paintings while serving in the coast guard in 1943, and yet another in 1949 while suffering from depression and being treated at Hillside Hospital in Queens.

Between 1954 and 1956 Lawrence produced a 30-panel series called “Struggle: From the History of the American People, “depicting historical scenes from 1775 to 1817.

Lawrence was one of the first Black artists to be represented by mainstream Soho New York City galleries. His work today is found in the collections of museums including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Museum of Northwest Art. His 1947 painting The Builders hangs in the White House.

For more information on this prolific Black OG, visit https://lawrencemigration.phillipscollection.org.