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Jacob Lawrence Gallery |
Library 1969
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The Lovers, 1946
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The Migration Series, No. 58, 1941
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Enter Gallery
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Gallery Description
Born in 1917, Jacob Lawrence lived in the times when the blacks migrated to greener pastures and resisted strongly racism in all forms. Lawrence moved from Pennsylvania to Harlem after his parents separated. He took up the study of arts with Charles Alston at the Harlem Art Workshop. Lawrence developed his aptitude for certain shapes, colors and visual relationships from his mother; despite financial constraints, his mother would decorate their home beautifully.
During his teenage years Lawrence made frequent visits to Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he developed an appreciation for the works of old masters. Lawrence derived inspiration from the Harlem community where he was raised. In the beginning of his career he developed a new brand of modernism that was against the idealized, fake-primitive images of blacks that was developed as a antidote for the toxic racism.
Lawrence began to paint everything he knew, heard, saw about Harlem. He became interested in the history of Afro-American culture. After much learning, reading and researching he brought out a sixty-panel narrative, The Migration of the Negro, that spoke about the life of the blacks, their struggle, strengths that made them fight; these were based on first hand experiences of his family and friends and findings of his own studies. He continued painting such series of thematic paintings that sought to communicate the struggle of black working women, health issues, role of religion and spirituality and the leisure lives of blacks etc.
He was then assigned commissions to military areas where he portrayed the war series. In the later stages of his life, Lawrence was psychologically affected; deviations from his normal characterization and colors in his paintings can be seen. With passing time, his art gained greater psychological depths; this is seen in the greater layering of patterns and increased use of lights and shadows.
Our Gallery brings you the works of this great artist! Check out Jacob Lawrence’s paintings here!
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Thursday, August, 7 th
2008
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