American artist Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) was a vibrant chronicler of African-American life whose paintings bear witness to epic movements—from South-to-North mass migration to the civil rights movement—and everyday life, notably in Harlem.
EVER UPWARD: Works such as Poster Design...Whitney Exhibition, 1974 evoke African-American achievement. © 2015 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, Seattle/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New YorkAn exhibition of 56 of his works, gifts to the Cantor Arts Center from the late Dr. Herbert Kayden and his daughter Joelle, MBA '81, is on display at the Cantor through August 3. Whether Lawrence is depicting historical events or the lives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and John Brown, his works exude a sense of universal progress. "Although my themes may deal with the Negro," he said in an oral history, "I would like to think of it as dealing with all people—the struggle of man to always better his condition and to move forward . . . in a social manner."
