Jacob Lawrence’s Struggle Series

In partnership with Wilmington Memorial Library, Phillips Collection Head of PK12 Initiatives Erica Harper shares insights about Jacob Lawrence’s Struggle series.

In 1949, seven years after a meteoric rise to national attention with his epic Migration Series, the leading American painter Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), began research at the New York Public Library for a new series. At the launch of the modern Civil Rights Movement, Lawrence sought to visualize a more integrated American history through word and image.

IMAGE: Jacob Lawrence, Panel 21, Listen, Father! The Americans have not yet defeated us by land; neither are we sure they have done so by water—we therefore wish to remain here and fight our enemy…—Tecumseh to the British, Tippecanoe, 1811, Egg tempera on hardboard, 16 x 12 in., Collection of Harvey and Harvey-Ann Ross, from Struggle: From the History of the American People, 1954–56 © 2021 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York