Jacob Lawrence’s Struggle… From the History of the African-American People

Lecture by Gerald Horne, Moores Professor of History & African-American Studies, University of Houston

Thursday, November 19, 2015 | Campbell 153 | 6:30 pm

This lecture is supported by the Arts Council, the McIntire Department of Art, the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at U.Va, the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, and the Corcoran Department of History. The exhibition is supported by Mr. Harvey Ross, The Jacob Lawrence Foundation, the Fralin Museum of Art, the Office of the Provost & Vice Provost for the Arts, the Page-Barbour Fund, the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH), and the Mary and David Harrison Institute for American History, Literature, and Culture.

From the Collection of Harvey and Harvey-Ann Ross, On Exhibition at The Fralin Museum September 2015–June 2016

Throughout a career spanning six decades, the artist Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) maintained an unwavering focus on the human condition and created work that gave pointed and consistent expression to the black experience in America. Lawrence first came to prominence in the Harlem workshops of the 1930s and was among the first African Americans to break the color line in the highly segregated world of modern art. Celebrated for his highly original use of flat tempera color patterns in a style termed “dynamic cubism,” and for his vivid storytelling, Lawrence’s paintings made visible the struggles for economic, political, and racial equality.

Largely due to its dispersal among various collectors and institutions, the Struggle series has remained an understudied aspect of Lawrence’s achievement as a narrative artist. To date, very little has been published concerning how and why in 1954, at the height of the McCarthy Era and just as the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education launched a new era in the civil rights movement, Lawrence would begin to paint a cycle of paintings depicting the Revolutionary War and pre-Jacksonian America 1740–1814.

Throughout the entire academic year, panels of Lawrence’s last epic series will be on display at The Fralin Museum. It has been twenty years since they were last seen together.

To learn more about the series and various programmatic opportunities, please contact Professor Beth Turner in the Art Department. To schedule museum classes, please contact The Fralin Academic Curator, Jordon Love.

© 2015 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The Fralin Museum of Art’s programming is made possible by the generous support of The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation.

This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of The McIntire Department of Art, Mr. Harvey Ross, The Jacob Lawrence Foundation, the Page-Barbour Fund, the Arts Council, WTJU 91.1 FM, albemarle Magazine, and Ivy Publications LLC’s Charlottesville Welcome Book.