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Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence

The Migration Series

Jacob Lawrence
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Lawrence's landmark series on African American migration in context

In 1941, Jacob Lawrence, then just 23 years old, made a series of 60 small tempera paintings on the Great Migration, the decades-long mass movement of black Americans from the rural South to the urban North that began in 1915-16. The child of migrant parents, Lawrence worked partly from his own experience and partly from long research in his neighborhood library. The result was an epic narrative of the collective history of his people. Moving from scenes of terror and violence to images of great intimacy, and drawing on film, photography, political cartoons and other sources in popular culture, Lawrence created an innovative format of sequential panels, each image accompanied by a descriptive caption. Within months of its completion, the series entered the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Phillips Memorial Gallery (today The Phillips Collection), Washington, DC, each institution acquiring 30 panels.

The Migration Series is now a landmark in the history of modern art. Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series, now in paperback, grounds Lawrence's work in the cultural and political debates that shaped his art and demonstrates its relevance for artists and writers today. The series is reproduced in full; short texts accompanying each panel relate them to the history of the Migration and explore Lawrence's technique and approach. Alongside scholarly essays, the book also includes 11 newly commissioned poems, by Rita Dove, Nikky Finney, Terrance Hayes, Tyehimba Jess, Yusef Komunyakaa, Patricia Spears Jones, Natasha Trethewey, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Crystal Williams and Kevin Young, that respond directly to the series. The distinguished poet Elizabeth Alexander edited and introduces the section.

 

Rita Dove served as poet laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995. She has been awarded many literary and academic honours, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1987 and the 1996 National Humanities Medal.

Terrance Hayes is the author of four collections including Lighthead, winner of the 2010 National Book Award in Poetry; Hip Logic, which won the National Poetry Series; and Muscular Music, winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. He is a professor of creative writing at The University of Pittsburgh and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife, the poet Yona Harvey, and their family.

Yusef Komunyakaa's books of poems include Warhorses (FSG, 2008), Taboo (FSG, 2004), and Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize. He teaches at New York University.

NATASHA TRETHEWEY was the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, 2012-14. She is the author of four collections of poetry: Thrall, Domestic Work, Bellocq's Ophelia, and Native Guard, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. She is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University.

Crystal Williams is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. She is a native of Detroit, Michigan, and author of Kin and Lunatic. Her poetry appears in magazines such as Luna, Fourth River, Callaloo, The Indiana Review, and in the anthologies: American Poetry: The Next Generation, Poetry Nation, Sweet Jesus, and Beyond the Frontier, among others. Her essays can be found in publications including Ms. Magazine. She has been a featured reader at venues across the country including: The National Arts Club, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Sarah Lawrence College.

Elizabeth Alexander is an American poet, essayist, and playwright. She is the inaugural Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry and a Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of African American Studies at Yale University. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 2005, and in 2010 she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in poetry by the AnisfieldWolf Book Awards.

NIKKY FINNEY is a professor of creative writing at the University of Kentucky and the author of three collections of poetry: On Wings Made of Gauze; Rice, which won a PEN America Open Book Award; and The World Is Round. She is also the author of Heartwood, a collection of short stories.

Dr. Jones is the Clinical Director of the Chemistry and Metabolic Disease Lab at Children's Medical Center of Dallas and a Professor of Pathology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Her PhD is in Molecular Biology with a minor in Biochemistry. Her duties include instructing pathology residents and various fellows in aspects of clinical chemistry and metabolic disease testing, and acting as a clinical consultant at the Dallas County hospital (Parkland) and the university hospital system. Her research interests lie in the field of inborn errors of metabolism, especially disorders of fatty acid metabolism.
Dr. Jones has been an active member of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) since 1986, serving on numerous committees for that association. She is currently the AACC President-elect and will be AACC President in 2016. She is the Past-President of the National Academy of Clinical Biochemists (NACB) and American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC).

Kevin Young is the author of six books of poetry, most recently For the Confederate Dead, winner of the Quill Award in Poetry and the Paterson Poetry Prize for Sustained Literary Achievement. He is also the author of Dear Darkness and Jelly Roll, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and won the Paterson Poetry Prize. He is the editor of four other volumes, including Everyman Pocket Poets Blues Poems and Jazz Poems, and the Library of America's John Berryman: Selected Poems. He is the Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing and curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University.

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) was an American painter known for his portrayal of African American historical subjects and contemporary life. He called his style "dynamic cubism" and drew inspiration from the shapes and colors of Harlem.

  • Publisher: Museum of Modern Art
  • Publish Date: February 28, 2017
  • Pages: 192
  • Dimensions: 9.5 X 11.9 X 0.7 inches | 2.4 pounds
  • Language: English
  • Type: Paperback
  • EAN/UPC: 9781633450400
  • BISAC Categories: History - General, Individual Artists - Monographs, American - African American
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