Jacob Lawrence: African American Modernist

Kunsthal KAdE shows the first retrospective exhibition ever in Europe of the African-American artist Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000). Lawrence made his breakthrough in 1941 with his iconic series of paintings entitled 'The Great Migration', a series consisting of 60 panels, half of which are on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and half at the Phillips Collection in Washington. In this series, he tells the story of the mass migration of the Black population from the southern United States to the north. Throughout his oeuvre, Jacob Lawrence focused on African-American history. Jacob Lawrence developed his own autonomous painting style in the twilight years of the Harlem Renaissance and is considered one of the most important African-American painters of the 20th century.

The overview in Amersfoort encompasses his entire oeuvre, from his early work in Harlem, New York, in the 1930s to his final decades in Seattle. The exhibition will feature 70 paintings, 25 drawings and 75 prints, as well as photographs and objects from the artist's estate. Among other things, it will include various panels from his famous 'Migration Series’, panels from the ‘Struggle Series' (a series that was the subject of a travelling exhibition in the United States a few years ago) and paintings and drawings about Harriet Tubman, the woman who rescued dozens of enslaved people from the southern United States via the Underground Railroad.