Jacob Lawrence Lines of Influence

Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) is among the most distinguished twentieth-century American painters, widely known for his modernist depictions of everyday life, as well as the inventive narrative technique he employed to address African American history.
Published in collaboration with the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, Jacob Lawrence: Lines of Influence explores the life, work, and legacy of Lawrence not only as an artist but as an educator and chronicler of the mid-twentieth-century African American experience. The book is arranged in two parts. The first, “Relations,” traces the interactions that shaped Lawrence’s personal and professional life. It presents his work in dialogue with that of his contemporaries, mentors, and historically significant artists, such as Josef Albers, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, José Clemente Orozco, George Grosz, Marsden Hartley, Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence, Horace Pippin, and Augusta Savage. The second, “Legacy,” explores Lawrence’s own influence on contemporary artists who share similar formal and conceptual strategies and includes commissioned works by artists influenced and inspired by Lawrence, such as Derrick Adams, Meleko Mokgosi, Barbara Earl Thomas, and Hank Willis Thomas. 
 
 

Storm Janse van Rensburg is head curator of exhibitions at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah.