My Life is My Art (ECE)

Kenneth F. Space

Jacob Lawrence making block prints at a WPA Federal Art Project Workshop

1933-34

Black and White Photograph

National Archives, Harmon Foundation, 200[S]-HNE-18-15

Early in his career, Lawrence worked alongside artists of the WPA Federal Art Project workshop, helping his early success and helping him develop his artistic style of showing life in his Harlem community. Similarly, in this lesson, students create their own neighborhood drawings to help them discover what’s meaningful to them in their neighborhoods.

Roger Smith

New York, New York. Street musicians in Harlem

1943

Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC 

As explored in this lesson, Lawrence drew on the everyday experiences of Black Americans to inspire his artwork. Harlem was his home and this photograph captures the essence of the everyday, common scenes of Harlem. Like Lawrence, students will draw inspiration from their own communities, elevating what they commonly see through their own artwork.

Jacob Lawrence

The Migration Series, Panel no 31:The migrants found improved housing when they arrived north.

1940–41

Casein tempera on hardboard

12 x 18 in.

Acquired 1942; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC © 2020 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

In addition to depicting the people of Harlem, Lawrence also painted the scenes of his neighborhood, drawing attention to the beauty that can be found in the everyday. This panel depicts common housing in the North—towering facades and windows of Harlem’s multi-story row-houses—shedding light on the realities of living in the North for Black Americans. Students can draw inspiration not only from the people they see, but the common scenes of their neighborhoods. 

Jacob Lawrence

The Migration Series, Panel no. 1: During World War I there was a great migration north by southern African Americans.

1940–41

Casein tempera on hardboard

12 x 18 in.

Acquired 1942; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC © 2020 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Lawrence’s Migration Series portrays the experience of the Black Americans who migrated from the South to the North in search of a better life between 1916 and 1940. As the lesson title (My Life is My Art) indicates, Lawrence’s art often mirrored his own lived experiences. Lawrence, himself, was the son of Southern migrants. This panel captures not only the experience of over a million Black migrants, but also Lawrence’s own family, further underscoring the lesson’s primary goals—to find inspiration from one’s own life.