Jacob Lawrence was born on September 7, 1917 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He had a sister named Geraldine and a brother named William. Jacob and his family moved many times over the course of his life. He first made his name in Harlem in 1930, where he went to school at Utopia Children's House. Lawrence finally settled in Seattle, Washington where he married Gwendolyn Knight in 1970 and became an art professor at the University of Washington where some of his works are now displayed in the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering. There are also a few of his works in Meany Hall for the Performing Arts. The piece in the main lobby of Meany Hall is entitled "Theatre" and was custom made for the hall in 1985. In 1998 he received Washington State's highest honor, The Washington Medal of Merit.
Jacob Lawrence is probably among one of the best-known twentieth century African American painters. Some of his works are shared by Romare Bearden. Lawrence's series of paintings made him nationally famous when it was featured in a 1941 issue of Fortune Magazine. The series depicts the great move north of blacks in the more un-fortuante years.
At the age of twenty-one Lawrence completed a forty-one piece project which he named "The Toussant l'Ouverture Series." This project documented the history of the Ha�tian Revolution. These works documented Columbus's discovery of Haiti on December 6, 1492, and resembled Toussaint's victory over the French with the signing of the Declaration of Independence on January 1, 1804. Between 1986 and 1997 Lawrence theme was based on pictures and real life sitations like these.
Jacob Lawrence's work often noticed as important periods in African-American history. Among his works are a series of pieces about John Brown and another about Haitian revolutionary "Toussaint l'Ouverture", as well as numerous paintings of Harriet Tubman. He was awarded the US National Medal of the Arts in 1990. The overall aim of his paintings were to give blacks reason to have pride, a sense of accomplishment, and hope for the future. Jacon Lawrence passed away on June 9, 2000.
