Jacob Lawrence

Born 1917 · Joined the Ancestors 2000

Fact

Created The Migration Series at just 23 years old

Fact

First Black artist represented by a major New York gallery

Fact

His paintings hang in every major American museum

Jacob Lawrence was twenty-three years old when he completed The Migration Series — sixty tempera paintings telling the story of the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North. It remains one of the most important works of American art, a visual epic that did for painting what Langston Hughes did for poetry: made Black life the subject of high art without ever simplifying it.

Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1917, Lawrence grew up in Harlem during its Renaissance. He studied at the Harlem Art Workshop under Charles Alston and Augusta Savage, absorbing the community's creative energy. His style — bold geometric shapes, flat planes of vivid color, dynamic compositions — was distinctly modern and entirely his own. He was the first Black artist to be represented by a major New York gallery.

Lawrence spent his career painting the stories of Black America: the lives of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and John Brown; the struggle of workers and families; the texture of everyday Black life. He taught at the University of Washington for over two decades, mentoring a new generation of artists. His work hangs in every major American museum, a permanent record of a people's journey.