Jacob Lawrence 's Influence On African American History

Jacob Lawrence was born on September 17, 1917, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States.He died in his sleep on June 9, 2000, in Seattle, Washington, United States due to natural causes. Lawrence was an artist/painter. He is regarded as “one of the most acclaimed African- American artists of the twentieth century.” Jacob Lawrence should be remembered because of his skill with the paintbrush as well as his achievement in successfully depicting the struggles of African Americans. He is an inspirational figure because he had the courage and ability to criticize society through methods such as cubism. He should be honored for his contributions to modern cultural art because he took advantage of his opportunity to make art and used the chance

The 1920’s was a very significant time period in history, mainly for African Americans. This time period, known as the Harlem Renaissance, was a cultural, artistic movement for African Americans to express themselves through music, dance, artwork, poetry, etc. These works are classified as either high art or folk art, both demonstrating racial pride. However, we want to know which one best represents racial pride. High art best expresses racial pride because of high imagery, structure, and lofty vocabulary.

In an attempt to prepare the art educator to the paradigm shift in classroom and develop a cohesive curriculum this would comprise the needs of the students and teachers to think about cultures different from their own. While I admire McFee’s interest in cultural diversity and the plight of African Americans. However, her essay is written from a privileged White middle-class perceptive with about her understanding of African Americans. How does McFee identify six major areas of social change in America of the sixties? More importantly, how does the stereotypes of African Americans influence art, education, and society?

Even though Jacob Lawrence grew up in the Great Depression, he still became one of the more important artists of the 20th century. As a talented abstract painter with unique style, he loved to paint differently from many artists he admired. He used his art to contribute to the fight that ended segregation. He painted not to become famous, but to change the world.

Throughout history there have been countless demonstrations of non-violent protests against injustice. Nonviolent protests are known for being extremely successful in bringing about positive change. Nonviolent resistance is when people achieve goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic noncooperation, and other forms of protests without the use of violence. A rather interesting form of nonviolent resistance is protest art. Protest art has been used since the early 1900s and can be described as creative works that are produced by activists and social movements as part of demonstrations or acts of civil disobedience. It has been extremely successful because it is not limited to one region or country, but is used to convey messages to everyone around the world. Kehinde Wiley is an artist who has truly made a noticeable statement with his bold, groundbreaking, and innovative work. Through his paintings, he advocates black empowerment and heroism throughout the African American community. He eliminates the negative connotations of African Americans and replaces them with uplifting images of black beauty.

Lawrence was known primarily for his series of panels on the lives of African Americans in history and scenes of African American life. His series of paintings include: The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture, The Life of Frederick Douglass, The Life of Harriet Tubman, The Migration of the Negro,The Life of John Brown, 1941, Harlem, War, The South, Hospital, Struggle ? History of the American People Jacob Lawrence was able to gain his popularity by telling expressing his own emotions through narrative paintings. He painted many pictures and arranged them to be able to formulate a sequence of events on how Black American’s were treated when he was growing up. His emotions were the main influences on his Art.

Jacob Lawrence was an African American painter, who was known for his portraits of the African American life. He was best known for his series titled, the Migration. Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey on September 7th of 1917. After his parents separated, Lawrence and his younger siblings were put into the foster care system until his mother could support her children in New York. His education into the world of art was not only formal, but informal as well. It was formal because he learned from after-school community workshops at Utopia House and later at the Harlem Art Workshop. However, it was informal because he could observe the rhythms and activity of the streets of Harlem. Not only was he a painter but he was active as a teacher, in contrast Lawrence was active as both a painter and art educator. In 1946, he began teaching at Black Mountain College in North Carolina and would go on to teach at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and the New School for Social Research in New York. In 1971, Lawrence became a professor of painting at the University of Washington in Seattle. “Later on in his career, he was also known for his serigraphs (silkscreens), many of them versions of series of paintings completed in earlier years, as well as for his book illustrations. Lawrence was still drawing and painting in preparation for still another series of works when he died in Seattle in 2000.” (Capozzola)

Throughout much of Modernism many artists were influenced and informed by the work of exotic regions throughout the world, more specifically Africa. African Art would influence much of the Modern Movements from the latter part of the Nineteenth and the beginning of the Twentieth Centuries. Much is said of the artists within the Harlem Renaissance, and how it directly reflects the influence of Africana upon their art. Often times, this work is neglected to be considered Modern if not in specialized selections of course throughout many of today's higher institutions of learning. However, thus being said, Aaron Douglas, often considered the pioneer of African American Modern Art, would bring this notion to the

The beginning of the 20th century many African Americans migrated from the south to the north in what we call today, the Great Migration. Many African Americans found themselves in a district of New York City called Harlem. The area known as Harlem matured into the hideaway of jazz and the blues where the African American artist emerged calling themselves the “New Negro.” The New Negro was the cornerstone for an era known today as the Harlem Renaissance (Barksdale 23). The Harlem Renaissance warranted the expression of the double consciousness of the African Americans, which was exposed by artists such as Langston Hughes. James Mercer Langston Hughes was an African American poet, journalist, playwright, and novelist whose works were

The Harlem Renaissance was a time when a multitude of African Americans voiced themselves through literary and musical culture during the years that followed World War I, which started in the year 1914 and ended around 1919, in the Harlem area of New York City (Stevenson). Having a solid adoration for black literature and the arts have provided me with the motivation needed to write this research paper on the topic of the Harlem Renaissance. This topic is not only historical, but it is also a creative one as well. Furthermore, the Harlem Renaissance is, in my opinion a different subject matter to discuss rather than just the normal topics, for example World Wars, Civil Rights, and things of that nature. It is essential to know the history of where black art comes from.

Enslaved as well as free African Americans pursued opportunities to create poetry, paintings, sculpture, and other forms of artistic self-expression. Many, of course, had to create their opportunities to create. In my paper I will compare and contrast a few artist lives and works of art. The four African Americans artist I will talk about are Robert S. Duncanson, Edward M. Bannister, Mary Edmonia Lewis, and Henry Ossawa Tanner —three free-born and one a freed slave.

The Harlem Renaissance was a time when African American arts flourished. There were songs, poems, paintings, and other works of art that were popular during this time. Within these forms of art, there are many different themes conveyed, but one of the most important ones is that the power of dreams can motivate people. Many artists convey this theme because many have been through bad times and have struggled to be accepted. Of the works studied so far from the Harlem Renaissance, “The Sculptor” by Nikki Grimes and “Aspiration” by Aaron Douglas most clearly demonstrate the theme that the power of dreams can motivate people.

One the most distinguished artists of the twentieth century, Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City and spnt part of his child hood in Pennsylvania. After his parents split up in 1924, he went with his mother and siblings to New York, settling in Harlem. "He trained as a painter at the Harlem Art Workshop, inside the New York Public Library's 113 5th Street branch. Younger than the artists and writers who took part in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, Lawrence was also at an angle to them: he was not interested in the kind of idealized, fake-primitive images of blacks - the Noble Negroes in Art Deco guise - that tended to be produced as an antidote to the toxic racist stereotypes with which white popular culture had flooded

The Black Arts movement refers to a period of “furious flowering” of African American creativity beginning in the mid-1960’s and continuing through much of the 1970’s (Perceptions of Black). Linked both chronologically and ideologically with the Black Power Movement, The BAM recognized the idea of two cultural Americas: one black and one white. The BAM pressed for the creation of a distinctive Black Aesthetic in which black artists created for black audiences. The movement saw artistic production as the key to revising Black American’s perceptions of themselves, thus the Black Aesthetic was believed to be an integral component of the economic, political, and cultural empowerment of the Black

Art is something that can only be achieved with the manipulation of the imagination. This is successful when using objects, sounds, and words. Richard Wright and Amira Baraka brought the power of art into the limelight. Wright’s perception of art was for it to be used as a means of guidance, one that could uplift the Negro towards bigger and better goals. Baraka’s perspective of art was for it to be used as an active agent, one that could kill and then imprint society permanently. Baraka and Wright both wanted the Negro to see that there was a much brighter future ahead of them. Both wanted art to leave a stain, a stain that could not be easily erased, washed, or bleached. Both believed that Black Art had no need to be silent but instead daring.