Jacob Lawrence :: essays research papers

Jacob LawrenceJacob Lawrences uncommon career has earned him a matter Medal Of Arts , pick to the National Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Design,a National Council of the Arts commisionership, and dozens of honorary degrees and awards, including the NAACPs Spingarn Medal. His paintings has been freatured in several major artistic creation expoundings and many different museums. Lawrences parents came from the south but they moved to Harlem where Lawrence grew up. Lawrence was born in 1917 and grew up in Harlem during the Great Depression. He had many extraordinary educational oppurtunities as well as his first employment as an artist. In the studio of his mentor, Charles Alston, young Lawrence painted while the Harlem Renaissance was blooming with a generation of young artists and writers. He studied at the Harlem Art store from 1932-1937 and at the American Artists School from 1937-1939. In the 1930s there was two primary(prenominal) art groups,reali sm art and abstractionism art. Lawrence rejected both of them and made up his own style of art. His paintings are alive with human figures, usually African Americans,engaged in all different types of activities. He dipicted the figures in his paintings with dignity and grace. He got his ideas from several different sources. He used repetitive paterns and a weed of different colors and design which are commonly found in a quilt or an African textile. He made up to as many as 60 paintings which are each tattle a story and the messages are usually of human triumph all over oppression and injustice. Although his paintings often relate to the history and experience of black stack their themes are universal. Lawrence allso made murals for his story telling. Throughout most of the 20th snow , art institutions within black communities were the only places that exhibited the work of black artists. If another(prenominal) galleries did have black exhibits they were singled out as "in kiness artists" or "Negro Art". Without gallery exposure, they were rarely noticed by influential mickle or obtain appropriate prices. In 1941 Alain Locke, a friend of Lawrences introduced Lawrences Migration series to the owner New Yorks Downtown Gallery Edith Halpert. Edith immediately organized an exhibition for Lawrences art work, and Lawrence joined the select few group of artists she presented, which included Stuart Davis, Charles Sheeler, and Ben Shahn. Lawrences Migration series was purchased and divided between the Museum of Modern Art and the Phillips Collection.