Jacob Lawrence
1917
–2000
Death placeSeattle, Washington, United States of America
BirthplaceAtlantic City, New Jersey, United States of America
BiographyJacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey where his mother, originally from Virginia, and his father, from South Carolina, had migrated from the rural south. He came to Harlem, a vibrant neighborhood in New York City, in 1930 at the age of thirteen with his mother and siblings. His mother enrolled him in an afterschool arts and crafts workshop at Utopia Children’s House set up by Professor James Wells (1902-1993) of Washington, D.C.’s Howard University. There the young artist was encouraged to experiment with patterns, textures, and colors. Lawrence continued his artistic education in the Harlem Art Workshop and later rented a space in artist Charles Alston’s (1907-197) Studio 306, a gathering place for artists and writers.
Lawrence began creating images of Harlem in 1935. They featured his immediate personal surroundings and experiences and offered portraits of city life, calling attention to racial tensions and urban issues such as poverty and crime. This early work was recognized in 1938 with a solo exhibition at the 135th street YMCA, thus affirming Lawrence’s art and vision in the very place where he lived and drew inspiration. Moved by his studies of modern art at museums and galleries downtown and by his research uptown at the Schaumburg Library, Lawrence decided to paint the lives of iconic figures in American history. He produced several series of 30 to 40 panels in his own flattened and distilled modernist style that memorialized individuals such as Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743-1802), Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), and Harriet Tubman (1822-1913). By 1940, Lawrence received a fellowship to illustrate the Great Migration, the mass movement of African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North after the start of World War I. Lawrence found inspiration in his own family’s experiences, oral histories from the community, and author Carter G. Woodson’s (1875-1950) recently published histories to create a collective narrative that became a series of sixty panels known as The Migration Series (The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. and Museum of Modern Art, New York).
Following the completion of that series in 1941, at age twenty-three, Lawrence was invited to join New York’s Downtown Gallery, providing the opportunity to engage with and exhibit alongside other contemporary modernist painters, including John Marin, and Charles Sheeler. Lawrence held a number of important teaching positions throughout his career and continued to produce paintings, drawings, and illustrations throughout his long career, output which solidified his position as one of the most prominent American artists of the twentieth century.
Lawrence began creating images of Harlem in 1935. They featured his immediate personal surroundings and experiences and offered portraits of city life, calling attention to racial tensions and urban issues such as poverty and crime. This early work was recognized in 1938 with a solo exhibition at the 135th street YMCA, thus affirming Lawrence’s art and vision in the very place where he lived and drew inspiration. Moved by his studies of modern art at museums and galleries downtown and by his research uptown at the Schaumburg Library, Lawrence decided to paint the lives of iconic figures in American history. He produced several series of 30 to 40 panels in his own flattened and distilled modernist style that memorialized individuals such as Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743-1802), Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), and Harriet Tubman (1822-1913). By 1940, Lawrence received a fellowship to illustrate the Great Migration, the mass movement of African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North after the start of World War I. Lawrence found inspiration in his own family’s experiences, oral histories from the community, and author Carter G. Woodson’s (1875-1950) recently published histories to create a collective narrative that became a series of sixty panels known as The Migration Series (The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. and Museum of Modern Art, New York).
Following the completion of that series in 1941, at age twenty-three, Lawrence was invited to join New York’s Downtown Gallery, providing the opportunity to engage with and exhibit alongside other contemporary modernist painters, including John Marin, and Charles Sheeler. Lawrence held a number of important teaching positions throughout his career and continued to produce paintings, drawings, and illustrations throughout his long career, output which solidified his position as one of the most prominent American artists of the twentieth century.