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Jacob Lawrence

There is an Average of Four Bars to Every Block, 1943

Description

Maker

Title

There is an Average of Four Bars to Every Block

Year

1943

Medium

Gouache, ink, and pencil on paper

Materials/Techniques

Materials

Supports

Dimensions

39.7 x 57.5 cm (15 5/8 x 22 5/8 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

LR:J. Lawrence 43 ; mat also signed Jacob Lawrence 1943

Type

Credit

Mary B. Jackson Fund

Object Number

43.565

Projects & Publications

Publications

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Urban America, 1930-1970

December 1, 2006 - February 25, 2007

In a letter of 1995 to a RISD curator, Lawrence wrote about this piece, which is one of a series of 30 autobiographical drawings:

In 1930, at the age of thirteen, my mother, brother, sister and I (all migrants) arrived in New York's Harlem community. I immediately took to walking the streets of Harlem. For me, it was a most exciting visual experience! Seeing the many produce stands, churches, show makers, cigar makers, penny arcades, tenements, the beautiful lacey fire escapes, pool parlors and the many bars -- I wondered how many "Joe's" there were in the world... The painting to which you refer came out of that experience. It was a period in my life that shall always be remembered and treasured.
[Letter dated February 21, 1995, Museum curatorial files.]

Tradition and Innovation in American Watercolors

January 27 - April 11, 1999

In 1942, a year before being drafted into the US Coast Guard, Lawrence received his third Rosenwald Fellowship. He used it to create his thirty-panel genre series entitled "Harlem," an intimate autobiographical work created within his classic shallow space using flat, saturated gouache colors. Like most of his other series, Lawrence probably created "Harlem" through a systematic approach -- thinking of the sequence as a whole piece, making preparatory drawings on each sheet, and executing all the panels at once. He frequently started with the black areas and worked slowly from darker to lighter values.

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is There is an Average of Four Bars to Every Block with the accession number of 43.565. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.