Masterpiece: Parade, 1960 by Jacob Lawrence
Keywords:
Grade:
Month:
Activity:
Shapes, repetition, overlapping
3rd Grade
February
Stenciling
Meet the Artist:
 Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in
1917 (died in Washington State, 2000).
 Grew up in Harlem, New York with his
mother and siblings. His Mom worked to
support the family so she enrolled him
in art classes to keep him out of
trouble. He studied art at the Harlem Art Workshop located in the Harlem Public
Library. So he had a lot of community support and encouragement.
 He painted bright colored patterns on wrapping paper and made strong papier-mâché
masks.
 He would walk 60 blocks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he studied the old
masters carefully, trying to figure out how they painted such things as a white cloth.
 His first exhibition was at the Harlem YWCA. He liked to paint scenes of everyday life
and of historical events featuring African American heroes like Frederick Douglas
(escaped slave, self-educated, later a United States Marshall) and Harriet Tubman
(former slave from Maryland who escaped but risked her own life again and again
helping other slaves escape).
 He married another artist named Gwen Knight and by the time he was 32 he was a very
famous artist.
 He was a careful observer of the everyday lives of American blacks.
 Many of his paintings are strong visual comments on how he feels about racial problems.
 He generally painted what he saw around him. A hospital stay became the subject for
11 paintings.
 He designed the poster for the 1972 Olympics, and several of his murals can be found
on public buildings.
 Throughout his career, and particularly during the late 1930s and early 1940s, Jacob
Lawrence used a series format to convey narrative content. Lawrence’s fascination with
movies during the Depression years inspired his approach to storytelling.
His Painting Method:
 For Lawrence, creating a visual narrative involved a process similar to the storyboards
used to plan the sequence of a film. Lawrence told his story in the alternating rhythms
of hardboard panels, employing every aspect, edge, and angle for its physical, social,
historical, and economic significance.
Masterpiece: Parade, 1960 by Jacob Lawrence
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Lawrence devised a system to create each cycle. He laid out the panels on the floor of
his studio, designing rhythms of vertical and horizontal hardboard panels, each the
same size. In this way, the thirty to sixty panels of a series could be seen together and
painted at the same time.
For his early narrative series, Lawrence first wrote captions and completed sketches
for each scene. Later he drew directly onto gesso primed hardboard panels. Then he
systematically applied one color at a time to each panel, beginning with black and
moving on to lighter colors.
Lawrence often used his colors unmixed so that they would not vary from one panel to
the next. He added white to make lighter shades of a color. His selection of colors–
black and burnt umber to cadmium orange and yellow–created an overall unity and
consistency.
Lawrence repeated motifs, shapes, and words throughout his narrative series. In The
Migration Series, the repetition of an enlarged single spike or nail, chain links or
lattice, hands, and the hammer act as refrains in the lives, experiences, and struggles
of African Americans.
Possible Questions:
o What even is happening in this painting? (A parade) How has the artist
showed you that this is a parade? (Rows of marching people, bright colors,
fancy costumes)
o Look at the crowds, how are they painted (overlapping)
o How many different groups of people are in this painting?(four different
groups of marchers; many different spectators)
o Has the artist included many details? (No – he has painted mostly areas of
flat color)
o What details has the artist chosen to leave out of the painting? (Details in
faces and clothes, buildings, the ground) Why might he have wanted to paint
this way? (Perhaps to show the color and motion of the scene; to capture a
few main ideas that interested him; other answers possible)
o Where do you think the artist is standing to see this parade? (Slightly above
the level of the street)
o Can you find shapes the artist has repeated again and again in this work?
Repeated colors?
o Repeated shapes = visual rhythm, rhythm creates movement. Does this
painting feel like it is moving?
o Try to find some diagonal (slanted) lines in Parade. Remember that lines can
be implied by the artist’s use of shapes and colors. (Diagonals are formed by
marching groups) How do these diagonal lines affect the painting? (They give
it additional movement and action)
Masterpiece: Parade, 1960 by Jacob Lawrence
Activity: Stenciling Shapes with Movement
Materials Needed: White Paper, stencils, pencils, watercolors, paintbrushes, water cups,
black permanent parkers
Process:
1. Cover desks with newspaper, and hand out supplies.
2. Today they are going to make sketches that have overlapping shapes. Give five
stencils. Pick one to use as your main shape-the sketch will be of a bunch of these
shapes that would overlap. Ask if anyone can think of something to draw like that?
3. It is a good idea to have the kids sketch first then color.
4. Suggestions: Parade, something on a table, rows of flags, soldiers marching in a line,
crowds of people at a baseball game, eggs or fruit in a basket, bunch of
balloons…show them my cake example.
5. Have them trace the stencils using pencil. Fill in the spaces with watercolor. Have
them notice what happens in the overlapping spaces.
6. Time permitting, have them outline their shapes with black marker after the
watercolor paint dries.
7. Have them sign their painting in the corner and give their masterpiece a title.