Jacob Lawrence

Lawrence's landmark series on African American migration in contextIn 1941, Jacob Lawrence, then just 23 years old, made a series of 60 small tempera paintings on the Great Migration, the decades-long mass movement of black Americans from the rural South to the urban North that began in 1915-16. The child of migrant parents, Lawrence worked partly from his own experience and partly from long research in his neighborhood library. The result was an epic narrative of the collective history of his people. Moving from scenes of terror and violence to images of great intimacy, and drawing on film, photography, political cartoons and other sources in popular culture, Lawrence created an innovative format of sequential panels, each image accompanied by a descriptive caption. Within months of its completion, the series entered the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Phillips Memorial Gallery (today The Phillips Collection), Washington, DC, each institution acquiring 30 panels.The Migration Series is now a landmark in the history of modern art. Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series, now in paperback, grounds Lawrence's work in the cultural and political debates that shaped his art and demonstrates its relevance for artists and writers today. The series is reproduced in full; short texts accompanying each panel relate them to the history of the Migration and explore Lawrence's technique and approach. Alongside scholarly essays, the book also includes 11 newly commissioned poems, by Rita Dove, Nikky Finney, Terrance Hayes, Tyehimba Jess, Yusef Komunyakaa, Patricia Spears Jones, Natasha Trethewey, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Crystal Williams and Kevin Young, that respond directly to the series. The distinguished poet Elizabeth Alexander edited and introduces the section.

As a painter and writer of prodigious talent and remarkable visionary sensibility, Barbara Earl Thomas continues to spark increasing attention both regionally and nationally. The granddaughter of southern sharecroppers who migrated to Seattle in the middle 1940s, Thomas expresses in her art a dual heritage, translating her own vision of southern roots and culture into a Northwestern landscape.Storm Watch is a radiant book, offering a richly satisfying combination of luminous images and the written word. Generously illustrated, it includes a color sequence of more than twenty powerful paintings, representing two decades of Thomas's career. In her paintings, Thomas incorporates themes of people and their rituals with the land, weaving images around the metaphor of place as both a geographical and spiritual location. Her writing, too, pulses with life. Her essay, "Passing Secrets," not only offers a perceptive sketch of the attitudes of black immigrants to the Northwest but also provides a personal insight into her technical and philosophical approach. Because her use of imagery is highly symbolic, Storm Watch has an appeal that crosses the boundaries of artistic media—of painting and writing—and transcends regional locale.Vicki Halper's masterful introduction chronicles Barbara Thomas's life and education and traces the impact of those experiences in the development of her art. Halper quotes extensively from Thomas's discussions about herself and her work, and draws useful comparisons between her art and that of selected painters, in particular, Americans Jacob Lawrence and Guy Anderson, and British artist William Blake. Most of all, she sheds light on the magic realism that infuses the stories Thomas tells with her paintings.

Aesop's Fables combines 23 timeless morality tales with striking black ink drawings by the revered artist Jacob Lawrence. Published originally in 1970, the book has been out of print for two decades. This new edition, completely redesigned and typeset, adds five illustrations Lawrence prepared for the original edition but which were not included in it.Aesop's fables are often ungentle tales with profound and instructive morals. Lawrence's bold and expressive pen-and-ink illustrations reflect both the charm and the severity of the fables themselves. The wisdom and depth of this collection will reach all who read it, from child to adult.Born in 1917, Jacob Lawrence is one of the most celebrated artists alive today. His awards include his 1983 election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a National Arts Award in 1992, and his confirmation as Commissioner of the National Council of the Arts in 1978 by the U.S. Senate. He is professor emeritus of art at the University of Washington, and has also taught at the Pratt Institute, Brandeis University, and Black Mountain College. His paintings have been widely exhibited since his first major solo exhibit in 1944 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and his work graces museum and private collections throughout the world.

This critically acclaimed picture book suitable for a wide range of readers chronicles the Great Migration--the diaspora of African Americans who headed to the North after WWI--through the iconic paintings and words of renowned artist Jacob Lawrence. The New York Times praised it as "a compassionate and sensitive portrayal of history."After World War I, large numbers of African Americans began leaving their homes in the rural South in search of employment, and a better life, in the industrial cities of the North like Chicago and Pittsburgh.Jacob Lawrence chronicled their journey of hope in his sixty-panel Migration Series, a flowing narrative sequence of paintings that can now be found divided between the Museum of Modern Art and the Phillips Collection.In this profound picture book, Lawrence brings all those landmark paintings together and pairs them with poetic text that further explores the experience of those enduring this mass exodus. From dealing with poor working conditions and competition for living space to widespread prejudice and racism, this is the story of strength, courage, and hope of the more than six million African Americans who were trying to build better lives for themselves and their families. This book features an introduction from Lawrence--whose family was part of this great migration--about its personal significance as well as a poem by Newbery Honor author Walter Dean Myers.ALA Notable BookALA Booklist Editors' ChoiceIRA/CBC Teachers' ChoiceNotable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)Carter G. Woodson Outstanding Merit Book