Exhibition Catalog | Jacob Lawrence

when she enrolled at a previously all-white elementary school. The resulting paintings
could hardly be more different, however, and the differences tell us much about
the racial identities and aesthetic preferences of the two artists.
Rockwell’s The Problem We All Live With is a departure from his earlier
romanticized, comforting images of white middle-class Americana. His decision to
address controversial racial issues prompted his departure from the Saturday Evening
Post, a middlebrow literary magazine, and his move to Look, a more provocative news
magazine. Rockwell depicts Bridges as an innocent child dressed in white, walking
with a book in hand and flanked by two pairs of protective U.S. marshals. She is facing
forward, seemingly unconcerned about the racist epithet and splattered tomatoes on
the wall behind her, or about the segregationist mob that is, or was, nearby. Rockwell
challenges white Americans to see the nation’s racial problem while also reassuring
them that the nation is acting to solve it.
Lawrence’s Alice also wears a white dress and carries several books, but she
is surrounded by grotesque, threatening figures rather than protective federal officials.
She is standing erect despite the small arrows that have pierced her dress and
body. Like the Christian martyr Saint Sebastian, she is facing us so we cannot ignore
her agony. Rather than seeing Ruby Bridges looking ahead with confidence that she
will reach school, we see Alice looking toward the mob (and toward us, implicating
the viewer). The stains left by the tomatoes splattered against the wall in Rockwell’s
image echo the spots of blood on Alice’s dress. Her wounds and hostile surroundings
suggest her mental state—perhaps expressing the feelings of an older Ruby Bridges as
she remembers what she once endured. Lawrence invites (or dares?) us to join him in
an emotionally charged setting that is rarely found in his previous paintings.
For a few months during 2011, President Barack Obama agreed to have
Rockwell’s painting displayed in the White House, and it is certainly a treasured
American icon. It is less likely that Lawrence’s painting will ever be publicly shown
there. His painting is far more likely to disturb viewers of all races than to reassure
them. For Lawrence, the problem we live with is not simply the racism experienced
by a small child in 1960, but the indelible memories that linger long after the racial
confrontations of that era.
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