"For me, a painting
should have three things: universality, clarity, and strength. Universality so
that it may be understood by all men. Clarity and strength so that it may be
aesthetically good."
In his early teen’s
African-American artist Jacob Lawrence’s mother sent him to arts and crafts classes at Harlem’s Utopia Children's House “to keep him busy.” Little did
she realize that it would keep him busy for the rest of his life as a chronicler
of African-American life in the United States. As he said later in life "Most of my work depicts events from the many
Harlems that exist throughout the United States. This is my genre. My
surroundings. The people I know … the happiness, tragedies, and the sorrows of
mankind … I am part of the Black community, so I am the Black community
speaking."
Growing up in Harlem at the tail end of the Harlem
Renaissance, an intellectual and
artistic re-awakening by black Americans following the Great Migration in the
early years of the 20th Century that saw millions of
African-American’s move from the rural south to the urban north, this surge in
the expression of African-American culture was a major influence in Lawrence’s
work.
At the age of 23 Lawrence received national recognition for
his Migration Series, a 60-panel
set of narrative paintings, when it was shown at New York’s Museum of
Modern Art. Influenced by Cubism in general and Matisse in particular his flattened shapes, opaque and highly saturated colors
and repeating patterns that often have rhythms and breaks that reflect the
syncopations of jazz are a hallmark of his work.
The art critic Robert
Hughes wrote in his book, "American Visions: The Epic History of Art in
America" about the Migration
Series, “He took on the task with a youthful earnestness that remains one
of the most touching aspects of the final work, and goes beyond mere
self-expression. As a result, you sense that something is speaking through
Lawrence - a collectivity.”
Lawrence’s reputation as a significant American artist was
consolidated a few years later by a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern
Art. Apart from his painting abilities Lawrence was also a skilled draftsman as
his pen and ink drawings for University
of Washington Press’ 1970 edition of Aesop's Fables attest.
But it is Lawrence’s
experiences living within the African-American community that he attributed to
having the greatest influence on his work. As he is reported to have said “In order to add something to their lives, [black
families] decorated their tenements and their homes in all of these colors.
I've been asked, is anyone in my family artistically inclined? I've always felt
ashamed of my response and I always said no, not realizing that my artistic
sensibility came from this ambiance.... It's only in retrospect that I realized
I was surrounded by art. You'd walk Seventh Avenue and took in the windows and
you'd see all these colors in the depths of the depression. All these colors.”
Twelve panels from Lawrence’s
incomplete Struggle series are currently on show at Washington’s The Phillips
Collection until the 9th of August.
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