Jacob Lawrence

(American, 1917–2000)

Jacob Lawrence was an important African-American painter known for his portrayals of black culture in the early 20th century. Consisting of 60 panels of sensitively colored figurative paintings, the artist’s hallmark work Migration Series (1940–1941), depicts the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to Northern cities between World War I and World War II. “My belief is that it is most important for an artist to develop an approach and philosophy about life,” he once said. “If he has developed this philosophy, he does not put paint on canvas, he puts himself on canvas.” Born on September 7, 1917 in Atlantic City, NJ and, showing early talent at a young age, was encouraged to attend the Harlem Community Art Center where he studied under the sculptor Augusta Savage. Completing his Migration Series at only 23 years old, in 1941, Lawrence was the subject of his first solo show at Downtown Gallery in New York, and became the first black artist ever to be represented by a New York gallery. During this time, he was credited with developing a unique aesthetic known as Dynamic Cubism, which Lawrence would attribute not to European influences but to “hard, bright, brittle” Harlem. In 1970, Lawrence and his wife, the painter Gwendolyn Knight, moved to Seattle where he taught art at the University of Washington. He died on June 9, 2000 in Seattle, WA at the age of 82. Today, Lawrence’s works are held in the collections of the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among others.