ARTNOIR'S - AFRICAN/AMERICAN ART HISTORY 101

ARTNOIR'S FEATURE ARTIST OF THE MONTH

JACOB LAWRENCE (1917-2000)

lawrence

"Mr. & Mrs. Jacob Lawrence and James A. Porter"
Lagos, Nigeria, c. 1964;

Lawrence is considered to be "the most widely praised African-American artist of the 20th century." As an African-American in the visual arts, his work has carried him to the pinnacle of success and fame. He was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1917. At the age of two, his parents moved the family to Easton, Pennsylvania. Hard times and lack of ample work caused his parents to separate. By 1927, Jacob, his brother William, and sister Geraldine were temporarily moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and were put up in foster care while his mom, Rose Lee Lawrence, looked for work in New York. Three years later, she went back to Philadelphia and brought the three children to live in Harlem, New York. Mrs. Lawrence's greatest fear was that Jacob would be drawn into a street gang, therefore she enrolled him in an after school arts program in the basement of the 135th Street branch of the public library. Here, Jacob Lawrence came in contact with two notable African-American artists: JAMES LESENE WELLS, painter and program director and, later, Professor of Art at Howard University, and CHARLES ALSTON, muralist, sculptor, painter, and graduate of Columbia University. Alston later organized the UTOPIA NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER, and Jacob Lawrence joined the CENTER. Jacob experimented with many types of creative patterns in art, especially those depicting people and neighborhood scenes.

High school was extremely frustrating for Jacob, therefore he stopped attending and immersed himself in art to alleviate his anxiety and frustration. At age 19, he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and traveled to Middletown, New York. Upon learning that his early mentor, CHARLES ALSTON, was teaching a part of the government's WPA program, Jacob returned to New York City. He was fortunate to meet people with artistic talent and educational knowledge. Among them were AUGUSTA SAVAGE, JAMES WELDON JOHNSON, CLAUDE MCKAY, COUNTEE CULLEN, ALAIN LOCKE, ELTON FAX, and Professor CHARLES SEIFERT, who taught African-American History at the 135th Street public library. SEIFERT'S lectures inspired Jacob Lawrence to focus more on the historical development and struggle of people from African descent. At this point in time, Jacob Lawrence decided to put his mind to work on stories and narratives in order to create expressive paintings depicting these historical happenings. He used his canvas as a vehicle for making statements on FREEDOM, DIGNITY, STRUGGLE, and DAILY LIFE among the African-American peoples. Jacob Lawrence was able to take complex issues and subjects and transpose these into expressive moods with bold, bright color scenes.

In July 1941 he married Gwendolyn Knight, a talented painter, and served in the U. S. COAST GUARD in 1943 where he did a series of paintings. Lawrence kept on striving to do what he knew best - that is painting. Jacob Lawrence's accolades are enormous.

Jacob Lawrence defined his art as coming from his experiences and visual views of life encounters. His limited formal art training carried him through the HARLEM RENAISSANCE ERA, the 1960's CIVIL RIGHTS ERA, and on to living today in the 1990's. He was the first artist to win the NAACP'S SPINGARN MEDAL in 1970. He has been awarded several fellowships, including the ROSENWALD and GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIPS. He is a member of the NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND LETTERS and has taught at PRATT INSTITUTE in New York City. He served as head of the Art Department at the University of Washington in Seattle and is presently PROFESSOR EMERITUS there. His works are probably known by more museums than any other African-American visual artist. Today, his works are among the collections found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of Art.

Art critics have called him a "BLACK MODERNIST" because of his fusion of PRIMITIVE, EUROPEAN, and AFRICAN-AMERICAN vignette. Lawrence also utilized Expressionism, Cubism, and African Art designs in his paintings.