Jacob Lawrence
Overview
 
Jacob Lawrence was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

; he was married to fellow artist Gwendolyn Knight
Gwendolyn Knight
Gwendolyn Clarine Knight was an African American artist from Barbados, in the West Indies.Gwendolyn Knight painted throughout her life, but did not start seriously exhibiting her work until the 1970s. Her first retrospective when she was nearly eighty years old...

. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...

", though by his own account the primary influence was not so much French art as the shapes and colors of Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...

.

Lawrence is among the best-known twentieth century African American painters, a distinction shared with Romare Bearden
Romare Bearden
Romare Bearden was an African American artist and writer. He worked in several media including cartoons, oils, and collage.-Education:...

. Lawrence was only in his twenties when his "Migration Series" made him nationally famous.
 
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