Jacob Lawrence Quotes on Art

Jacob Lawrence is a famous African-American artist. He is best known for his depictions of black culture in America. Famous Jacob Lawrence works include “In the North the Negro had better educational facilities”, “Harriet Tubman Series”, “Pool Parlor” and “Blind Beggars”.

Mini biography: Born Jacob Armstead Lawrence on the 7th of September, 1917 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States of America. His parents were Southern migrants: Mother Rosa Lee and father Jacob Lawrence. He was married to the Bridgetown, Barbados born artist Gwendolyn Clarine Knight from 1941 until the artist’s death. Jacob Lawrence died from lung cancer on the 9th of June, 2000 at the age of 82.

List of Jacob Lawrence Art Quotes

This is my genre.. the happiness, tragedies, and the sorrows of mankind as realized in the teeming black ghetto. Jacob Lawrence

My early beginnings, as most Negroes in the United States, has been the Negro experience. This is all I knew at one time was the Negro experience. My whole background, Negro family, Negro community, everything was Negro. So I think it was natural that I would use this symbol for my expression. Jacob Lawrence

All artists are constantly looking for something and they don’t always know what. Jacob Lawrence

When the subject is strong, simplicity is the only way to treat it. Jacob Lawrence

I try to point out to them there’s less chance of your becoming just illustrative when you become involved with the plastic elements of painting. Jacob Lawrence

If at times my productions do not express the conventionally beautiful, there is always an effort to express the universal beauty of man’s continuous struggle to lift his social position and to add dimension to his spiritual being. Jacob Lawrence

To me, migration means movement. There was conflict and struggle. But out of the struggle came a kind of power and even beauty. Jacob Lawrence

For me, a painting should have three things: universality, clarity and strength. Clarity and strength so that it may be aesthetically good. Universality so that it may be understood by all men. Jacob Lawrence

There are things an artist will do that he’s unaware of an which may not be quite right. And you have a person around who you respect who sort of pulls you up sometimes and points this out to you. And you either accept it; it doesn’t mean that you just accept it but you think about it, you see. It makes you begin to think. Jacob Lawrence

I try to get the student to appreciate form and shape, line, color, texture and space regardless of what the content may be. The content can be abstract or it can be figurative; figurative or non-figurative. Jacob Lawrence

My mother was from Virginia. My father was from South Carolina. And they met in Atlantic City. He was a cook and my mother was a domestic worker. Jacob Lawrence

You don’t see a head as a head, but you see it as a form and as a shape. And you can work as realistically as you care to. But if you just see these things for what they are the chances are you will become more illustrative and you will never develop from this, you know; move out from this. Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence Self Portrait

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Related or similar popular artists and celebrities include: Chris Ofili, Pablo Picasso, Jean Michel Basquiat and other Famous Black Artists.