Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence

Painting, Contemporary Art, Cubism

Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey on September 7, 1917, Lawrence’s family moved to Harlem, New York in 1930 to live with his mother. Growing up, Lawrence had access to the Met to see works by the classical art masters and the great masters of the Harlem Renaissance. He was trained by Charles Alston and attended the American Artist School in New York from 1937-39. Referred to his style as “Dynamic Cubism” and was influenced by the shapes and colors of Harlem, using blacks and Browns juxtaposed by bright colors.

He gained national recognition when he was 25 with his Migration, or Migration of the Negro series.  The 60-panel series is split up between the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Phillips Collection in Washington DC. All the panels were painted on cardboard with tempra, which had to be painted on one color at a time in multiple layers and shows common struggles of African Americans as they left the south in hopes of a better future in the North.

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Transfer from the National Endowment for the Arts

1915

2000

Painting, Tempera Paint

Cubism, Contemporary Art,

1907 - Present

•Musume of Modern Art
•Smithsonian American Art Museum
•The Philips Collection
•Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture
•The Art Institute of Chicago
•The White House
•SCAD Museum of Art
•National Academy of Art