Exhibition Catalog | Jacob Lawrence

WOLF
the latter descends the steps at her feet. One carries a bag or parcel while the other
cradles an infant. Their visual contrast lends the image a sense of time passing. The
world we observe is defined by beginnings and ends, youth and age. We see before
us two things: Harlem as Lawrence remembers it, and a quiet narrative of artistic
origins—an image of a young Lawrence taking his first steps as an artist.
At the top center of the painting, to the left of the young mother, a window
opens onto a different vista. We see through it what might be a picture on a wall, or—just
as likely—a stage scene of a woman dancing. The drapes on either side of the window
suggest both a visual frame for the people within and a stage curtain pulled back. Are we
witnessing a moment of private life, or is Lawrence alluding in more theatric terms to
the rich musical and artistic heritage of Harlem, a reference perhaps to the Apollo Theater,
home to a vibrant black arts scene throughout Lawrence’s life in New York?
Back, then, to the boy drawing on the pavement. He is observed not only by
the gentleman at right, but also by a little girl walking her dog directly behind him. She
turns her head to gaze at him, and in the process recapitulates the viewer’s own attentive
stare at the child. If he represents for Lawrence a portrait of the artist as a young
man, then he also resonates with other American paintings of artists at the beginning
of their careers. A century earlier, in a painting that Lawrence would have seen many
times at the New-York Historical Society, Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole portrayed
a young boy on the ground (fig. 5) in a posture very similar to Lawrence’s figure:
squatting, pointing to the right, and sketching a stick figure that—in Cole’s image—
represents a young child’s first image of his mother, standing before him. Lawrence’s
boyish artist similarly draws with rudimentary forms. He is in the process of creating
a house out of simple geometric shapes: a triangle for a roof and squares for the chimney
and windows. This is where, in Lawrence’s mythology, art begins: with childhood,
domesticity, and the familiar world of everyday forms (a house, in Lawrence’s case, or
a mother, for Cole). The boy’s elementary efforts lend him an aura of innocence. And
innocence, as Lawrence imagines it, provides a starting point for an art animated by
love, familiarity, and the pleasures of
everyday life. In this way, art is about
what we cherish most. The child’s innocence
goes hand in hand with his
desire to reproduce the world that has
nurtured him.
FIGURE 5
Thomas Cole (U.S.A., 1801–
1848), The Course of Empire:
The Arcadian or Pastoral
State, 1833–1836. Oil on
canvas. Gift of The New-York
Gallery of the Fine Arts.
Collection of the New-York
Historical Society
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