Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, NJ in 1917. Lawrence moved to Seattle to join the art faculty at the University of Washington in 1971. He retired in 1983 but maintains his studio in Seattle. He is recognized as the major African American artist in the country. His work is included in all the major museum and corporate collections in the USA and has been exhibited internationally. Lawrence has received many prestigious awards and is a member of both the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (since 1988) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1995). He paints from experience, observing the world around him, Harlem scenes, African markets, builders, people in the street, and most recently supermarkets with their abundance of goods and people. His historical series on Toussaint L'Ouverture, John Brown, the Migration and Harriet Tubman are known the world over through exhibitions and books, reproductions and limited edition prints. Jacob Lawrence died in the year 2000.