Jacob Lawrence: A Guide to Jacob Lawrence’s Life and Artworks

Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) was an American painter known for his portrayal of Black life in works featuring historical events, working-class people, and heroes like Toussaint L’Ouverture, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass. Lawrence was the first Black artist to be represented by a New York gallery and the first to be represented in the Museum of Modern Art’s collection.

Lawrence’s vivid, modernist depictions of Black life and culture helped to shape twentieth-century art and inspired generations of African American artists.

• Early life: Lawrence was born in 1917 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. After his parents separated, Lawrence and his siblings spent time in foster care in Philadelphia while his mother sought work in Harlem. In 1930 Lawrence joined his mother in New York City, where he attended the Works Progress Administration-sponsored Harlem Art Project and studied under Charles Alston. Alston introduced Lawrence to Harlem Renaissance figures including the sculptor Augusta Savage. He began painting scenes of ordinary life.
• Rise to prominence: In 1937, inspired by a lecture by historian Charles Seifert, Lawrence shifted his subject matter from everyday life in Harlem to Black history. The eventual result was his early masterpiece, The Migration of the American Negro, a series of 60 paintings shown in 1941, which met with critical acclaim from the art world. That same year, Lawrence married the artist Gwendolyn Knight.
• Maturation: During World War II, Lawrence served in the Coast Guard and documented his travels through art. When his service ended, Lawrence accepted an invitation from the artist Josef Albers to teach at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. He returned to New York City shortly after relocating to North Carolina to receive mental health treatment. He painted The Hospital Series (1950) during his time at the Hillside Hospital in Queens.
• Later years: During the 1950s and ’60s, Lawrence painted scenes from the civil rights movement and taught at Pratt Institute and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in New York City before moving to Seattle to teach at the University of Washington. Lawrence remained in Seattle until his death in 2000 at the age of 82.

Lawrence’s artistic style, which he called “dynamic cubism,” was inspired in part by the colors and shapes of Harlem. Characteristics of his style include:

1. 1. Patterns: From the beginning of his career, Lawrence showed an interest in patterns, which he used to create movement, rhythm, and energy in his paintings.
2. 2. Vivid colors: Inspired by the colors of everyday life in Harlem, Lawrence juxtaposed bright reds, greens, yellows, and oranges with shades of brown, black, and white. His preferred medium was tempera, a quick-drying paint.
3. 3. Series: In 1937, Lawrence became interested in the narrative style of history painting. Lawrence created a fresh take on the genre, spreading his narrative over a series of many paintings rather than one. His style, with its graphic urgency, was radically different from the realism that history painters had relied on for hundreds of years.

Lawrence had a prolific career, painting from his teens until just weeks before his death. Some of his best-known works include:

1. 1. The Migration of the American Negro (1940–41): At the age of 23, Lawrence exhibited this collection of 60 paintings and captions illustrating the Great Migration in a bold graphic style, ushering history painting into a new era. Lawrence had a personal connection to this story: His parents had moved from the rural South to the North during the Great Migration.
2. 2. This is Harlem (1943): A natural extension of his Great Migration series, this painting celebrates the neighborhood where many Southern migrants, including Lawrence and his family, eventually landed. The painting features colorful patterns, from fire escape ladders to stained-glass windows to apartment buildings. In large print, the words “Dance,” “Bar,” “Beauty Shoppe,” and “Funeral Home,” highlight the important businesses of the neighborhood.
   
3. 3. The Builders (1947): This painting of Black and white construction workers showcases Lawrence’s use of color and pattern. Swathes of red attract the eye, while diagonal blue pant legs—paired with horizontal and vertical lines of ladders and slabs of wood—create a sense of motion and activity. Lawrence continued to explore the motif of building and construction throughout his career.

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