Name: Saturday Art: “The March” by Jacob Lawrence - Shadowproof
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Saturday Art: “The March” by Jacob Lawrence - Shadowproof

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(image from Wikimedia Commons)Something about the recent events in the world brought these pictures to my mind. Everywhere I see people marching.Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) was an African-American artist born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He moved to Harlem at the age of 13, where his mother enrolled him in free art classes. He studied at the Harlem Art Workshop, which was sponsored by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930’s, and he later had a paid position working for the WPA. His main influences were figures in the Harlem Renaissance such as Romaire Bearden, Langston Hughes, and W.E.B. DuBois. He was very prolific at a young age, and by the early 1940’s he had already completed five series of paintings in which he explored African American history and identity. The most well known set of paintings, which made him famous, was the “Great Migration” series which included 60 works, and documented the epic movement of African Americans from the rural South to the industrialized, urban North in the early part of the 20th Century. (If you are interested in this topic, a recent book “The Warmth of Other Suns; The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” by Isabel Wilkerson is highly recommended).“The March”, pictured above, is part of “Toussaint L’Ouverture”, the first of Lawrence’s series, 41 pictures which chronicle the liberation of Haiti in 1804 under the leadership of General Toussaint L’Ouverture. You can view some of them Incredibly, these were created when Lawrence was not even 20 years old. This series was followed by one and two series on the lives of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. He also did series entitled Life in Harlem (1942), War (1947) and several others, besides many individual paintings. Lawrence worked mainly in gouache and tempera. Later in life, he reworked some of the earlier images to create silkscreen prints. His last public work, the mosaic mural was installed in October 2001 in the Times Square subway station in New York. &nbsp;. . .I think what I love about his work is that besides being beautiful to look at, the paintings have a story to tell. He did a lot of historical research before creating these painted narratives. In many of them the bold colors, strong shapes, and repeated parallel figures give the work a rhythmic quality. You can feel the movement. Here are several more of his works that have those same qualities. , also part of the Toussaint L’Ouverture series; from the Great Migration Series; and this one, which I find particularly gorgeous. Even his late works have that same power and rhythm. This one, is from 1999.Jacob Lawrence was married to fellow artist Gwen Knight Lawrence for 59 years. The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation maintains a with a searchable archive of their works.Shadowproof is a financially independent news organization. All of our funding comes from small donations made by readers like you.We use your donations to hire freelance writers and cover our operating costs. Monthly membership subscriptions give us the stability we need to make plans while ensuring our organization does not depend on grants or major funders. If you like what you read, support our writers with a donation today.&nbsp;

(image from Wikimedia Commons)Something about the recent events in the world brought these pictures to my mind. Everywhere I see people marching.Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) was an African-American artist born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He moved to Harlem at the age of 13, where his mother enrolled him in free art classes. He studied at the Harlem Art Workshop, which was sponsored by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930’s, and he later had a paid position working for the WPA. His main influences were figures in the Harlem Renaissance such as Romaire Bearden, Langston Hughes, and...

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Saturday Art: “The March” by Jacob Lawrence - Shadowproof

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