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Untitled

1961

American, 1917 - 2000

This and a related drawing (2023.20.2) of bustling city life reflect Jacob Lawrence’s keen powers of observation, great strength as a visual storyteller, and mastery of the high modernist devices of spatial flatness, gestural line, and all-over composition. Both drawings feature local denizens gathered on stoops and leaning on windowsills to witness an urban spectacle of blue-collar laborers and white-collar bourgeoisie, a police brigade, a priest, couples, mothers, and even a cat as they move cinematically across a shallow picture plane. Unlike the close-knit families and neighborhoods celebrated in Lawrence’s earlier Harlem scenes, these city streets teem with a disengaged population that is fragmented, insular, and alienated.

Ink on paper

Framed: 25 3/4 x 31 1/2 in.

Gift of Eve and Chap Alvord in honor of Norman and Constance Rice

2023.20.1

Provenance: [Terry Dintenfass Inc., New York]; Elsie Niedenberg, New York; [DC Moore Gallery, New York]; purchased from gallery by Eve and Chap Alvord, Seattle, Washington, October 1997; gift to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2023

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistoryDC Moore Gallery, New York, Jacob Lawrence Drawings, 1945 to 1996, Oct. 9 - Nov. 9, 1996 (traveling, 1996‒97).

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Jacob Lawrence: American Storyteller, June 28, 2024 - January 5, 2025.

Published ReferencesNesbett, Peter T. and Michelle DuBois. Jacob Lawrence: Paintings, Drawings, and Murals (1935‒1999), a Catalogue Raisonné. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, in association with Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonné Project, 2000; p. 237, ill.

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