Jacob Lawrence: Paintings, Drawings, and Prints from 1937-1998
December 12, 2001 - January 26, 2002

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) is a towering figure in the history of twentieth century American art. For over six decades, starting with his 1930s works depicting life in Harlem on to his series' depicting major events of American history and the Builders series which was his main concern for the last three decades of his life, Lawrence has been considered one of America's preeminent painters. This exhibition will include more than thirty works selected from over sixty years of Lawrence's career.

Jacob Lawrence was born in 1917 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. His family moved to New York City's Harlem in 1930, where young Lawrence came into contact with some of the greatest artistic and intellectual minds of his generation. Lawrence became a nationally known figure virtually overnight when his The Migration Series was shown at New York's Downtown Gallery in 1941. The twenty-four year old artist became the first African-American to be represented by a New York gallery. Fortune magazine published a lengthy article on the series and it was purchased jointly by the Museum of Modern Art and the Phillips Collection.

A major retrospective exhibition Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence is on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art from November 8, 2001 until February 3, 2002. The exhibition originated in 2001 at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC and will travel to Detroit Institute of Arts from February 24 through May 19, 2002, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA from June 15 through September 8, 2002, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas from October 6, 2002 through January 5, 2003. A definitive two -volume catalogue raisonné and examination of Lawrence's life and work, also titled Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence, was published in the fall of 2000 by the University of Washington Press.