Analysis: The Harlem Renaissance

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Recommended: Challenges of the Harlem Renaissance

Maria Bravo
Period 5
December 9th, 2015 Jacob Lawrence The Harlem Renaissance is the name given to a period at the end of World War I through the mid-30s, in which a group of talented African-Americans managed to produce outstanding work through a cultural, social, and artistic explosion. Also known as the New Negro Movement. It is one of the greatest periods of cultural and intellectual development of a population historically repressed. The Harlem Renaissance was the rebirth of art in the African-American community mostly centering in Harlem, New York, during the 1920s. Jazz, literature, and painting emphasized significantly between the artistic creations of the main components of this impressive movement. It was in this time of great …show more content…

When he was thirteen years old, he moved to New York City with her mother and two younger siblings right after his parents separated. As a teenager, he took classes in the library in 135th Street, which nowadays is the famous Schomburg Center. One of his teachers, Charles Alston (muralist, sculptor, and painter), exerted great influence on him. Alston created an art school for young people called the Utopia Community Center, where an after-school art program took place; Lawrence was successfully admitted. When he was 16 years old he dropped out of school, but continued receiving classes at the Utopia Community Center. Alston insisted him to attend to the Harlem Community Art Center, conducted by the sculptor Augusta Savage. Savage arranged him a scholarship for the American Artists School and a paid position in the Works Progress Administration. Lawrence was able to study and work with notable artists of the Harlem Renaissance, like Charles Alston, and Henry Bannarn in the Alston-Bannarn …show more content…

The 41 small tempera paintings dramatize the struggle of Haiti’s newly-obtained independence and the exploitation of farm workers. That artistic tribute to the freedom fighter, exposed in the paintings with vibrant colors, geometric shapes, and abstract patterns established the distinctive style that made him famous [Dynamic Cubism]. Lawrence also painted pictures about the typical colored people, and he presented them as heroes, full of dignity that was obtained in the struggle. Lawrence was married to painter Gwendolyn Knight on July 24, 1941. In October 1943 (during World War II), he enlisted in the United States Coast Guard and served in the first racially integrated United States Coast Guard (USCGC) Sea Cloud team. While he was in the Coast Guard, he was able to paint and draw what was happening during World War II. Lawrence completed the set of sixty narrative paintings titled “Migration of the Black.” Those series were about the migration of thousands of African-Americans from the South to the North after World War I. It was exhibited in New York and brought him a national award. In the 1940s, Lawrence made his first major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and became the most famous African-American painter in the country. Lawrence taught at several schools, and continued painting until a few weeks before

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