Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence was an American painter known for his depictions of African American historical subjects and contemporary life. Lawrence described his style as “dynamic cubism,” although he said he was influenced less by French art and more by the shapes and colors of Harlem. He brought the African American experience to life by combining blacks and browns with bold colors. He also taught and was a professor at the University of Washington for 16 years.
Lawrence is among the best-known African American painters of the 20th century and is known for his modernist illustrations of everyday life as well as his narratives of African American history and historical figures. At the age of 23, he gained national recognition with his 60-part series The Migration, which depicted the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. The series was jointly acquired by the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Lawrence’s works are in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Northwest Art. His 1947 painting The Builders hangs in the White House.