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The Complete Jacob Lawrence: "Over the Line: the Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence" and "Jacob Lawrence: Paintings, Drawings, and Murals ... and Murals (1935-1999), A Catalogue Raisonne" Book

The Complete Jacob Lawrence, a large, two-volume set on the late African American artist who died in June 2000, is so thoughtfully conceived that in addition to admiration, a reader feels gratitude for it. Over the Line, a book of biographical and critical essays, and its companion, a catalogue raisonné, are exactly what Lawrence deserves. A successful artist both in and out of the mainstream throughout most of the 20th century, he was also handily pigeonholed. A social realist, a modernist, and a storyteller, he was described as "self-taught," "primitive," "jazz-age," "narrative," and, above all, "African American." But the eight richly detailed essays in Over the Line show his complex work--in which the threads of abstraction and narrative are tightly woven--in all its magnitude. The books possess unusual authority, as all of the writers knew Lawrence to some extent, and Lawrence's wife, the artist Gwendolyn Knight, was instrumental in the project's fruition. When Lawrence was a professor of painting, a graduate teaching assistant complained to him that her students resisted her instructions. His response was, "Tell them they're absolutely right. And then tell them to do it your way." This confidence in the validity of different points of view allowed him to express everything he knew about the hardships of African American life while remaining open and interested in everything the world had to offer. His last great series, "The Builders," is a moving metaphor for harmony, showing carpenters of all skin shades working together with hammers, nails, saws, and other tools to construct--what? A better life? A better country? A better world? Lawrence's point was never so reductive. It was enough that they were working side by side. As a Washington Post critic once wrote, "An aura of affection, goodwill and respect, both given and received, shines around the man, and like armor around his art." --Peggy Moorman Read More

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  • Product Description

    This two-volume set, including Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence and Jacob Lawrence: Paintings, Drawings, and Murals (1935?1999), A Catalogue Raisonné, is the definitive publication on the work of artist Jacob Lawrence. The result of six years of research by the Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonné Project, led by Peter T. Nesbett and Michelle DuBois, the books identify, authenticate, and document over 900 paintings, drawings, and murals created by Jacob Lawrence between 1935 and 1999?over half of them discovered by the project. Over the Line includes essays by eight distinguished art historians considering the ways in which Lawrence?s art speaks so powerfully to different audiences and examining for the first time the breadth and depth of his output.

    Intimate in scale and bold in content, Lawrence?s candid portrayals of life in Harlem during the Depression and his epic multi-panel series painted in the late 1930s and early 1940s are the cornerstones of his aesthetic production. His paintings, drawings, and murals depict both critical moments in history and poignant struggles of everyday life. The subject matter ranges from unforgiving portrayals of racial injustice to compassionate scenes of family life, from unnerving images of nuclear annihilation to visual celebrations of such heroic individuals as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. His use of the series format and his attention to pressing social issues accord him a unique position in the history of American modernism.

    Born in 1917, Jacob Lawrence spent his childhood in New York City, attending classes at the Harlem Community Art Center and the American Artists School, and later working for the Federal Art Project. While still in his twenties Lawrence exhibited his paintings at major museums across the country, including the Phillips Collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he became the first African American artist to have work represented in the permanent collection. He lived, painted, and taught in New York City until 1971, when he joined the faculty of the University of Washington. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the National Medal of Arts.

    The contributors to Over the Line include Lizzetta LaFalle Collins; Patricia Hills, Boston University; Elizabeth Hutton-Turner, the Phillips Collection; Paul Karlstrom, West Coast Archives of American Art; Leslie King-Hammond, Maryland Institute; Richard Powell, Duke University; Lowery Stokes Sims, Studio Museum in Harlem; and Elizabeth Steele, the Phillips Collection.

  • 0295979631
  • 9780295979632
  • Peter T. Nesbett, Michelle DuBois
  • 1 December 2000
  • University of Washington Press
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 360
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