Jacob Lawrence
Brooke Warner and Ashley Hoban"Maybe ... humanity to you has been reduced to the sterility of the line, the cube, the circle, and the square; devoid of all feeling, cold and highly esoteric. If this is so, I can well understand why you cannot portray the true America. It is because you have lost all feeling for man.... And your work shall remain without depth for as long as you can only see and respect the beauty of the cube, and not see and respect the beauty of man-every man." -Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000)
Style
Lawrence used mostly vivid bright colors but he used deep browns and black for shadows. He came into the spotlight when he created 60 paintings called ``Migration of the Negro,'' which blended mural, realist and abstract styles. These painting reflected the journey of African American from the South to the North after World War I ended.
Bio.
He was born in Pennsylvania but moved to Harlem with his mother after his parents separated. He once said that, "I am the black community." He understood this concept very well because he was a young adult during the Great Depression. Lawrence was trained to paint at the Harlem Art Workshop. He became a tenured professor at Seattle's University of Washington in1971 retiring in 1986. He never stopped painting.
Objective
Lawrence began to develop a new brand of modernism, he drew inspiration from what he encountered growing up in Harlem. His work focused on the lives of African Americans and their aspirations. He tried to find common ground for all americans and people in general. Jacob Lawrence tried to show what life was like struggling for freedom during the civil rights movement.
The Street, 1957
Confrontation at the Bridge, 1975
Self-Portrait, 1977
Brownstones, 1958
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- Research: Artists of the African Diaspora last edited on 15 October 2008 at 12:54 pm by 148.61.242.193