Jacob Lawrence:
An American Master

Artist Bio

Jacob Lawrence grew up in Harlem in the 1930’s in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Depression. He taught himself to see color and shapes as patterns that could tell stories. His talent was encouraged by other New Yorkers, African American artists who saw to it that he was employed by the Works Progress Administration, one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous social programs to combat the ravages of the Depression years.

The history of the African American experience was his great subject, and he created many narrative series in paint and prints that have a lot in common with another innovation of the Depression years: Documentary Photography. Sometimes the story is a historical event, sometimes it is a depiction of the private lives of African Americans. In Lawrence’s later work the story often has universal themes: the ability of people of different races to work toward a common goal, the human suffering caused by general disaster (Hiroshima series).

Jacob Lawrence always knew who he was painting for: poor, hard-working people who could instantly recognize in his images the qualities of their own lives, and the hopes and fears that colored their own existence. He kept his shapes and colors simple, with sharp edges and strong dynamic contrasts, using these formal elements to give emotional power to the story he wanted to tell. He kept to a flat, stage-like space where lots of things could be happening simultaneously. In this way his recording of events was very different from photographic snapshots. It matched very closely the oral traditions of storytelling that was the mainstay for passing on the black American cultural heritage within its own community.

Lawrence was born in the south in 1917, and his family were part of the Great Migration that surged northward beginning in 1910 and continued until World War II. Lawrence taught and painted for the most of his life on the East Coast. He moved with his artist wife, Gwendolyn Knight, to the University of Washington at Seattle in 1971, where he was an Emeritus Professor of Art. Lawrence died June 9th, 2000 in Seattle.

Exhibition Statement

Jacob Lawrence has long been recognized as one of the foremost American artists to have successfully articulated the African-American experience throughout a career that spanned seven decades. His visual narratives of the American scene helped to redefine our history, our culture, and ourselves. This exhibition consisted of eleven paintings and twenty-three prints completed between 1977 and 1990. These works demonstrate Lawrence’s striking compositions and bold use of color, and convey a message that challenges us to examine our own sense of community and history.

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