"Perhaps the most prominent American painter alive today and the foremost African-American artist in our history."
--Jerome Silbergeld, UW School of Art
"By using outline drawing and a crisp-edged medium, Lawrence accentuates the taut, ribbony contours of the scenes he depicts, at the same time giving his art one of its more distinctive traits."
It has been said that the paintings of Jacob Lawrence "have
a way of delivering a jolt to even the most complacent
museum-goer." The human figures and objects in
his pictures are designed using bold, flat patches of color.
His compositions, often built on a diagonal framework, thrust
their elements forward and out of a compressed space, using
"strong, hard-edged shapes of unpredictable, unmodulated,
intense color." 
His creations are expressionistic
in style, cubist in form, and social in content.
Lawrence attributes his fascination with vivid patterns of
color to the days of his youth, growing up in Harlem during the
grim years of the Great Depression. "Our homes were very
decorative, full of a lot of pattern…all this color….
Because we were so poor, the people used this as a means of
brightening their life." His interest in art was
stimulated at the age of 12, when he was sent by his mother to
a program at a settlement house, where, besides hot lunches, he
received training in arts and crafts. A teacher there, Charles
Alston, kept the young Jacob busy working with poster paint on
wrapping paper, making papier-mache masks, decorating the
insides of cardboard boxes to make street scenes.
A 1987 article in the Smithsonian magazine recounts
the early influences on the developing artist. Alston converted
his studio on West 141st Street into a neighborhood workshop,
which became a cultural gathering place for artists in
Harlem--the poets Claude McKay and Langston Hughes; critic
and philosopher Alan Locke; sculptor Augusta Savage. Lawrence
rented a portion of that studio, where he went to paint, and to
listen. Also during this time, he would walk some 60 blocks to
the Metropolitan Museum of Art to study and ponder the
techniques of the masters.
The earliest paintings that survive from Lawrence's youth
date from the time he was 19 years old and depict "both the
sordidness and the kick and vitality of life" in the streets of
Harlem. A collection of some 150 of
Lawrence's paintings, including some of these earliest works,
toured the country in 1986-87 in a retrospective entitled
Jacob Lawrence, American Painter. The tour was organized
by the Seattle Art Museum and debuted in Seattle; the
collection subsequently was exhibited in Oakland, Atlanta,
Washington D.C., Dallas, and New York. The accompanying catalog
by the same name, by Ellen Harkins Wheat, represents the first
comprehensive survey of the work of the artist.
Throughout his career, Lawrence has worked predominantly with water-based media applied on paper or hardboard panels. Lawrence's preference for these materials stems from his earliest experiences with art, from the inexpensive poster paints of his youth.
He has developed a narrative style, often assembling a
series of paintings or panels to tell a story in art. His
exploration, for example, of the story of Toussaint
L'Ouverture, who led the slave revolt that brought independence
to Haiti, resulted in a series of 41 paintings in tempera on
paper. His approach to creating such a series of panels is
systematic, resembling that of a carpenter or craftsman. First,
the outline of the scene is drawn in pencil. Then, starting
with the darkest color, he applies paint to particular areas of
all the panels. He repeats this procedure with every color,
until all outlines have been filled in, so that the pictures
are finished simultaneously, achieving a unity of color and
tone within the entire array. 
Other series have dealt with Frederick Douglass, famous black orator and writer, and Harriet Tubman, a slave who became a famous organizer of the Underground Railroad that helped slaves to reach freedom in the North. His 60-panel series on The Migration of the Negro, depicting the gradual movement of Blacks during the early 20th century from farms in the south to cities in the north, received national attention in the early 1940s. Some 26 of the panels were reproduced in Fortune magazine. Notes Robert Wernick in the Smithsonian: "It was the first time a national publication had paid so much attention to the movement of millions of black people, or devoted so much space to the work of a black artist."
A love of good tools and a reverence for building are
dominant and recurring themes in Lawrence's work. In a 1977
self-portrait of the artist in his studio, the surroundings are
reminiscent of a carpenter's workroom: artist as builder, as
craftsman. The term "carpenter cubism" has been used to
describe Lawrence's unique artistic form.
As a teacher, Lawrence has inspired generations of students.
"Lawrence's commitment to teaching began almost as early as his
commitment to painting," 
writes art historian Peter
Nesbett, who with Patricia Hills has produced a catalog on the
artist's graphic works, published by UW Press. In 1946,
Lawrence taught with Josef Albers at the famous Black Mountain
College. And beginning in 1955, he taught at the Pratt
Institute in New York, and at various institutions around the
country. In 1971, he accepted the post of professor of art at
the UW. Reflects Nesbett:
"As a professor, he set a standard for self-effacing modesty. He remained remarkably accessible, one of the few University professors to keep a working studio in the School of Art building. Students witnessed his commitment to his craft firsthand, catching glimpses of the artist's creative laboratory as they passed in the hall." After his retirement in 1985, Lawrence continued to lecture occasionally in art history seminars and studio art classes.
Among his many honors, Lawrence was elected in 1983 to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; he was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1990, and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995. And in 1994, the UW School of Art named the Jacob Lawrence Gallery in his honor.
The Gallery is an exhibition space in the School of Art building where student and faculty works are displayed. The gesture "secures the memory of his contribution to the University for generations to come of students, faculty, and staff," notes Nesbett. "The naming of the Jacob Lawrence Gallery is a tribute to a man whose spirit graces us all."
