Jacob Lawrence, an American artist, was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1917, during the time when his parents were migrating to New Jersey from the South. His parents, like most of the African Americans during this time period, were part of the great migration of black southerners. Lawrence was a child during the time of the depression in New York. He was schooled primarily in Harlem and began taking art lessons in an after-school program at the 135th Street Branch Library, which today is the Schomburg Gallery. He began taking classes under the direction of notable African American artists Charles Alston and James Lesene Wells, who were mentors of Lawrence. Charles Alston was a muralist, sculptor, painter, and graduate of Columbia University, who later organized the Utopia Neighborhood Center, of which Lawrence later became a member. The Utopia Neighborhood Center was an after school arts program were Lawrence was first given poster paints and other Arts materials. The other notable artist who had a great influence on Jacob Lawrence was James Lesene Wells. Wells was a painter and program director and later Professor of Art at Howard University. These classes were sponsored by the government through the Works Projects Administration, and helped Lawrence to win a scholarship to the American Artists in New York. While at this school, Lawrence studied for two years with other renowned artists such as Harry Gottlieb, Louis Lozowick and Anton Refregier.
The most influential artist in the career of Lawrence was Aaron Douglas. For Lawrence, Aaron Douglas was most important because as a young artist in the 1930’s during the Harlem Renaissance, Douglas set the framework for Lawrence and other young artists with his use of highly stylized aesthetic, space compositions, and subdued forms. This framework that was set by Aaron Douglas is the reason that Lawrence uses a unique way of telling the “Blues” visually. Many of the classes and lectures that Lawrence attended during his studies of Aaron’s work inspired him to focus more on the historical development and struggles of people of African American descent. He decided to become a modern day storyteller and create stores and narratives into expressive paintings that showed the historical happenings or “blues” of African Americans. These depictions can be seen through many of Lawrences’ creative works, mostly through his acclaimed “Migration Series” and “Parade”.
Jacob Lawrence paints mostly in tempra or gauche. This medium of paint demonstrates visually, the two-dimensional patterns that are represented in his subjects. In many of Lawrences’ paintings including the “Migration Series” and “Parade”, he makes little use of perspective. The colors that he uses in his paintings are rich and stunning. In “Parade” (1950), emphasis has been placed on elements of color and movement. This painting was influenced from an annual New Year’s Day Parade in Philadelphia, and depicts what Lawrence portrays as visual “blues”. The human subjects are so alive, rhythmically, that the “blues” music can be loudly heard, as the marchers move from foreground to background. He also tells the “blues” through the spectators who line the sidewalk, and complement the marchers in their bright colored uniforms.
The Migration Series is comprised of sixty tempra paintings and is marked by Lawrences’ distinctive style and makes statements on Freedom, Struggle, Life, and Dignity among his people, transposed into statements that convey expressive moods with bold, bright color scenes. Lawrence uses a consistent pallet of green, yellow, graybrown, blue, and orange. Each painting is also accompanied by a descriptive caption that has been revised by Lawrence for a national tour in 1994 and 1995. He also includes expression, cubism, and African art designs in his paintings.
The Migration Series begins and also ends with the image of the train station. Lawrence uses this action to simulate the train journey and progression from painting to painting and to tell the “blues” visually about African Americans journey to a place unknown to them and there daily struggle to exist. Each stopping point of this train is clearly defined by Lawrence. These panels also show examples of people reading letters of relatives who have already migrated to the North and images of others who are waiting for that passage to another and better life in the North.
The Migration Series concludes with the focus on the newly formed African American communities of the North. There is much contrast in through his paintings with the comparison of the newcomers at a church worship and the well-to-do people already in this area dressed in top hats and furs. The series ends as it began, “And the Migrants kept coming.” Below are several suggested lessons.
