Jacob Lawrence, Visiting Artist Lecture 1989

Reflecting on the many experiences which have enriched his life (his family’s move North and eventual settlement in New York City, the Depression, the free art centers established by the Roosevelt administration, living among skilled craftsmen of various types) and, in turn, been the focus of his art, African American painter Jacob Lawrence shows slides of his work and that of his wife, Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence, commenting on issues which a beginning artist may encounter and the types of decisions (such as choice of medium, limiting the palette, types of forms which recur in his work) he has made over the course of his life as an artist. The speaker expresses a real affection for the Skowhegan program and for the type of art student he has encountered there. This recording is incomplete.