Exhibition Catalog | Jacob Lawrence

CAT. 5
Old America seems
to be breaking up
and moving Westward . . .
—AN ENGLISH
IMMIGRANT, 1817
1956
No. 30 from the series Struggle . . .
From the History of the American
People, 1954–1956
Egg tempera on hardboard
11⁷⁄₈ × 15⁷⁄₈ in.
2013.96
This panel, the final one Lawrence
completed for the Struggle . . . series,
shows how ambitiously he pursued abstraction in
the 1950s. The image is unusual for the artist in that
it contains no human figures. Instead, it foregrounds
the vital role that beasts of burden played in the
settling of the American West. Two oxen bound to
a yoke and foaming at the nostrils pull a pioneer’s
wagon through water. The splash of bright red blood
on the wagon’s rail alludes to the sacrifices—both
animal and human—that occurred during westward
expansion. This series demonstrates the breadth of
Lawrence’s explorations of America’s history and the
myths that surrounded its origins during the 1950s.
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