Biography and pictures on jacob lawrence and john

Jacob Lawrence was a renowned African American painter of the 20th century. He was born in in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Where was jacob lawrence born

When he was 2 years old the family relocated to Easton, Pennsylvania. Shortly afterwards, his parents split up and his mother placed him and his siblings in foster care while she moved to New York City. There he joined an after school art program. He took an interest in art from an early age and his teachers noted his great talent and encouraged him.

Jacob lawrence art style

He dropped out of school at the age of 16 but continued to take art classes at the Harlem Art Workshop with the renowned African American painter Charles Alston. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. He continued to paint during this time, and also married a fellow artist named Gwendolyn Knight. The couple moved to the Pacific Northwest, where Lawrence had been invited to work as an art professor at the University of Washington.

His first acclaimed series of paintings were done at the age of 21, and were exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art. In it, he depicted the movement of thousands of African Americans from the rural South to the North. These paintings were displayed at the New York Museum of Modern Art and brought him widespread acclaim. In , he had a grand solo exhibition at the same museum and became one of the most distinguished painters of the country.

He also did a series of paintings about the lives of revolutionary freedom fighters Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman , and also one about the abolitionist John Brown. His later work, done after moving to Washington included a series of paintings about the journey of African American pioneer, George Washington Bush, which are now displayed at the State of Washington History Museum.