Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000)
The 1920s . . . The Migrants Arrive and Cast Their Ballots
8-color serigraph on paper, ed. 8/125, 1974
1976 Gift of Lorillard, NY
image: (h) 32” x (w) 24 1/2"
Introduction
Jacob Lawrence's art reflected his passion for storytelling and his
acute observations of African American life. Producing poignant
works that communicated the struggle for social equality in the
midst of injustice, he portrayed the daily life of African American
people and the difficulties they endured with fortitude.
Characterized by simplified forms and flat colors, his work presents historical narratives of life
as he saw it. In this serigraph, The 1920s . . . Migrants Cast their Ballots, Lawrence captures the
era when over a million African Americans left the oppression of the rural south for northern
cities where they found jobs and the freedom to vote. Lawrence was the first African
American artist to achieve prominence in a segregated art world and remains one of the most
popular American artists of the twentieth century.
The Artist
Jacob Lawrence was born in 1917 in Atlantic City, New Jersey after his mother moved the
family from Philadelphia. At the time of his birth many African Americans had begun to travel
north in search of a better life. He grew up in Harlem during The Great Depression, at the
center of what was dubbed the “Harlem Renaissance,” the artistic and cultural awakening within
the rapidly growing African American community.
Under the New Deal programs of the 1930s, Lawrence was offered both educational
opportunities and later, employment as an artist. Harlem already had a thriving artistic
community and he studied with Charles Alston who taught him to observe the visual patterns
that surrounded him, and to translate this pattern into his paintings. Alston introduced him to
the 306 Group, which included artists Romare Bearden and Augusta Savage, to whom
Lawrence credits much of his early success. He later studied at the Harlem Art Workshop and
American Artists School.
In 1938 he was employed as a painter for the “easel section” of the Federal Art Project of the
WPA. Rejecting realism and abstraction, the two dominant styles at the time, he developed his
own distinct style, combining a type of Cubism with his own colorful “patchwork” style of
figurative painting. He was drafted into the US coast guard during World War II, though he was
fortunate to be allowed to paint most of the time, and created a series of war paintings. After
service, he returned to New York and worked on narrative suites of paintings based around a
single subject.
At the time, African American artists were only able to exhibit in galleries or museums labeled
as “Negro Artists,” and were unable to gain independent gallery exposure in the whitedominated art world. Without commercial support from patrons or sales, few African
American artists succeeded, but in 1941, gallery owner Edith Halpert saw Lawrence’s
“Migration” series and immediately invited him to exhibit with a group of established artists
including Stuart Davis, Charles Sheeler, and Ben Shahn. As a result the series was purchased
and divided by the Museum of Modern Art and the Phillips Collection, and 26 of the panels
were reproduced in Fortune Magazine. Lawrence had received the break he needed, and
became a successful and respected artist from that moment onwards. In the same year he
married the painter Gwendolyn Knight to whom he remained married until his death.
In 1946 he spent some time teaching at the progressive Black Mountain College of Art in North
Carolina upon invitation from Bauhaus artist and color theorist Josef Albers. However, his
success and fame had a negative side as he was the only well known African American artist
achieving notoriety during the segregated 1940s. Working at a crucial and delicate stage of race
relations, he was overwhelmed by the pressure to represent the African American struggle and
in 1949, Lawrence admitted himself to a psychiatric institution, where he spent almost a year
being treated for depression. He later taught at several New York art schools, and finally
moved to Seattle to teach at the University of Washington from 1971-1983. Several extended
visits to Nigeria in the mid 1960’s inspired his Nigerian Series, and in the 1990’s, Lawrence wrote
and illustrated several children’s books about African-American history. He continued to paint
until his death in 2000, at the age of 82.
Jacob Lawrence is seen as one of America’s most important artists of the 20th century and is
possibly the most recognized African American artist of all time. During his lifetime he was
awarded honorary degrees from numerous prominent universities. His work is included in
museum collections throughout the United States and internationally, and since his death his
work has been the subject of several major retrospectives.
Discussion
Jacob Lawrence is known for his paintings documenting Harlem life, the struggle against slavery
and racial oppression, the Civil Rights Movement and biographical images of prominent African
Americans. With his Migration of the Negro series, consisting of sixty panel paintings exhibited
when he was just 24 years old, he gained the recognition that enabled him to pursue a career as
an artist. He was an avid seeker of knowledge, and the series is the product of several months
of historical research at the local library, from which he made caption-style notes and many
sketches. This screen print was taken directly from a gouache painting of the same name from
the series, originally painted in 1940. It was included in a portfolio of prints celebrating
America’s Bicentennial in 1976.
Silkscreen, also known as serigraphy, was a medium used mainly for commercial purposes such
as posters popularized during the 1930s under the Works Progress Administration’s Federal
Art Projects. In contrast to prints that are mass-produced, a signed, numbered original print is
printed from a plate or matrix created by the artist, and is limited in number. This silkscreen is
numbered 8/125, meaning it was printed eighth of the 125 in the edition. Limited edition prints
are valuable because they are printed in small quantities, and signed by the artist who has a part
in their production. In the silkscreen process each color is printed separately, the ink forced
through negative areas of silk which has been stretched over a wooden frame. To ensure that
all the colors fit together, a meticulous system of “registration” is used, so that each color of
ink is printed onto the correct part of the paper. Artists will often work in a print studio with
a master printer who will oversee the technical aspects of the printing process.
This print shows a group of African American migrants from the South, casting their votes for
the first time. The scene shows people of all ages as they wait their turn to enter the polling
booth, seen in the background. At the table in the center of the image, poll workers check the
name and address of a man in a black suit, while those lined up in the foreground chat or wait
patiently for their right to vote.
The figures are abstracted, simplified into flattened shapes and blocks of color without shading.
The artist has used a unified background color that is the same as the skin tones of the voters,
visually unifying the composition, which consists of a limited palette of less than ten colors.
Lawrence has organized the colors to spatially balance the work; the circle of white shirts and
newspapers, similarly the four women dressed in red, and the black suits of the men in
foreground, middle-ground and background. There is a vibrancy and rhythm to this work that is
typical of Lawrence’s distinctive style. He has used linear perspective to suggest a sense of
depth within the room, and the receding lines of the table edge lead the viewer’s eye to the
most important aspect of the painting – the polling booth.
Style
Jacob Lawrence developed his own style independent of the movements that dominated
twentieth century American art. His style evolved from his subject matter, borrowing elements
from a number of aesthetic traditions. Storytelling was always the most important aspect of his
work, and he developed his own style of abstraction, a kind of “paint-chip” or “collage” cubism,
dominated by bright, flat color, silhouettes, overlapping of forms, and highly “designed”
compositions. His bright, Cubist-influenced style probably came from his contact with artist
Stuart Davis, with whom he exhibited at the Downtown Gallery in 1941.
The Migration of the Negro series was painted in a social realist style that highlighted, at times,
the harsh realities of life in the North, in contrast to earlier romanticized art chronicling the
migration. The African American historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr. praised Lawrence's work for
its ability to raise race-consciousness while remaining modern and individualistic. Using what
has been dubbed “expressive Cubism,” the Migration series can be stylistically defined as
narrative figurative modernism. Lawrence devised a vibrant, intellectual, and self consciously
African-American approach to racial identity, portraying his subjects with humanity, dignity and
grace.
Sources
Kaplan, Janice L., & Osmond, Susan Jacob Lawrence, article in World & I, 08879346, Feb. 2002,
Vol. 17, Issue 2 Database: MasterFILE Premier EBSCO
Mazelis, Fred Jacob Lawrence Dead at 82: A Major American Painter, June 16, 2000. article
on: World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/jun2000/lawrj16_prn.shtml
Wright, Suzanne Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series article in Footsteps, 15215865, Sep/Oct
2002, Vol. 4, Issue 4 Database: MasterFILE Premier EBSCO
http://northbysouth.kenyon.edu/1998/art/pages/lawrence.htm
(Online article “Jacob Lawrence”)
http://northbysouth.kenyon.edu/1998/art/wpa.htm
(Online article “Works Progress Administration”)
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/jan-june00/lawrence_6-13.html
(Short transcript of PBS interview with Lawrence, recorded 1995 by Charlayne Hunter-Gault)
http://www.sptimes.com/News/092001/Weekend/Art__Hot_Ticket.shtml
(Short description of the work Migrants Cast Their Ballots)
http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_051900_lawrencejaco.htm (Jacob
Lawrence biography)
http://www.wichitaartmuseum.org/miab/lawrence.html
(Discussion of the work The Migrants Arrive… from: the Wichita Art Museum)
http://www.afro.com/culture/artgallery/archive9/art6.html
(Historical look at the work The Migrants Arrive… from: Afro-America Art Gallery)