Jacob Lawrence

• Born: September 7, 1917
• Birthplace: Atlantic City, New Jersey
• Died: June 9, 2000
• Place of death: Seattle, Washington

Artist and educator

Lawrence is widely considered one of the best American painters of the twentieth century. His prolific career began during the Harlem Renaissance and continued until his death in 2000. His work is exhibited nationally and internationally. Lawrence also was a highly respected art educator for much of his life.

Areas of achievement: Art and photography; Education

Early Life

Jacob Armstead Lawrence was born September 7, 1917, to Jacob and Rosa Lee Lawrence. When he was two, his parents moved to Easton, Pennsylvania, where his sister, Geraldine, was born. In 1924, Lawrence’s parents separated and the children moved with their mother to Philadelphia. That same year, Rosa gave birth to another son, William. In 1927, Rosa moved to New York City, leaving her three children in foster homes in Philadelphia for three years before they reunited with their mother in New York City.

The family lived in Harlem, and Lawrence attended P.S. 68 and Frederick Douglass Junior High School. In 1930, while his mother worked, Lawrence attended an after-school program at Utopia Children’s House, where he received his first formal training in art from Charles Alston. In 1934, Lawrence dropped out of Commerce High School to continue his art studies with Alston through the Harlem Art Workshop. Lawrence also was involved with Alston’s work with the Harlem Mural Project for the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

Through these experiences, Lawrence was exposed to many of the most important artists and writers of the Harlem Renaissance. One of these artists was the famous sculptor Augusta Savage. In 1936, Savage started the Uptown Arts Laboratory, where she instructed up-and-coming young artists. In 1937, the Uptown Arts Laboratory became the Harlem Community Art Center. The next year, Savage got Lawrence a job with the WPA.

Life’s Work

Lawrence was a prolific artist. By the age of twenty-four, he had created more than 170 paintings, including some of his most important works. One major project was a series of forty-one 11-inch by 19-inch paintings titled Toussaint L’Ouverture (1938), drawing inspiration from the Haitian Revolution of 1795. The work was presented in Lawrence’s first national exhibition, a show at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1939. Lawrence’s work has strong narrative elements, prominently displayed in series such as The Life of Fredrick Douglass (1939), The Life of Harriet Tubman (1940), and The Life of John Brown (1941).

Perhaps Lawrence’s most recognized work is also a narrative series (funded by a 1940 Rosenwald Foundation Grant of fifteen hundred dollars), The Migration of the Negro (1941). This work, comprising sixty 18-inch by 12-inch panels, was completed with assistance from fellow painter Gwendolyn Knight. Knight and Lawrence married in 1941. The Migration of the Negro depicts scenes of the great wave of migration of African Americans from the South to the North. Lawrence had studied the subject carefully, conducting extensive research, and the paintings’ captions display the depth of his knowledge.

That same year, Lawrence agreed to representation by Edith Alpert’s Downtown Gallery. The Migration of the Negro was split and bought by the Museum of Modern Art and the Phillips Memorial Gallery in 1942. Alpert also showed the series to Deborah Calkins, assistant art editor of Fortune magazine, and the magazine published twenty-six of the panels in November of 1941, giving Lawrence international exposure. From 1943 to 1945, Lawrence served in the U.S. Coast Guard. In 1946, he began teaching at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina. Struggling with depression, Lawrence spent four months in a mental hospital in 1949.

Through the 1950’s, Lawrence continued to paint, often choosing Harlem daily life as his subject. He also accepted commissions for paintings of United States history. In 1958, he joined the faculty at Pratt Institute in New York, a post he held until 1970. He won a fellowship through Yaddo, an artists’ community, in 1955. His most prominent work of the 1950’s was Struggle: From the History of the American People (1955-1956).

Lawrence made two trips to Nigeria in 1962 and 1964, and he became artist-in-residence at Brandeis University in 1965. His work of the 1960’s is characterized by a continued focus on historical themes but with a distinctly political flavor, mirroring the Civil Rights movement of the era. He depicted school integration in The Ordeal of Alice (1963), interracial marriage in Taboo (1963), and police brutality in Struggle No. 2 (1965).

In 1969, the family moved to California, where Lawrence took a position at California State University, Hayward. In 1970, he accepted a teaching position at the University of Washington. He remained connected to the university for thirty years, and his work continued to be exhibited nationally and internationally. He lived and worked in Seattle until his death on June 9, 2000.

Significance

Lawrence is arguably the most famous African American painter of the twentieth century, with work that has been shown worldwide. His style (which he defined as “dynamic cubism”) was unique in American painting. He received hundreds of national and international awards, including the National Medal of the Arts and the Spingarn Medal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The foundation he started with his wife, the Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Foundation, presents a yearly art fellowship of ten thousand dollars.

Bibliography

Bearden, Romare, and Harry Henderson. A History of African American Artists from 1972 to the Present. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993. Contains a chapter on Lawrence, whom Bearden knew personally.

Hills, Patricia. Painting Harlem Modern: The Art of Jacob Lawrence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Comprehensive examination of Lawrence’s major works, paintings of Harlem, and protest pieces.

Nesbett, Peter, and Michelle Dubois, eds. Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000. An exhaustive resource for Lawrence’s life and art, published in conjunction with a major retrospective of his work.

Wheat, Ellen Harkins. Jacob Lawrence: American Painter. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986. At the time of its publication, this book was the definitive examination of Lawrence’s work and life.