Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000), American painter and educator, famous for his narrative series of paintings on African American historical figures and topics. Born September 7, 1917, he studied at the Harlem Art Workshop in New York City from 1934 to 1936, when he won a scholarship to the American Artists School, also in New York City. He taught painting at New York's Pratt Institute from 1958 to 1965. From 1970 he taught at the University of Washington in Seattle, becoming professor emeritus in 1983.

Lawrence's narrative series—dozens of paintings on a single historical figure or topic—generally portray people or periods important to African American history, such as abolitionists John Brown and Frederick Douglass. Lawrence's simplified graphic forms draw from a variety of artistic traditions, including expressionism and cubism. Among his more famous works are The Harriet Tubman Series (1939-1940, 30 panels) and The Migration Series (1941-1942, 60 panels), describing the mass migration of African Americans to urban centers in the North.

Lawrence's work has been exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, all in New York City, as well as in other major museums around the country. Lawrence also illustrated a collection of Aesop's fables, produced posters for the 1972 Olympic Games, and wrote and illustrated Harriet and the Promised Land (1993), a children's book of verse about Harriet Tubman.