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Jacob Lawrence was an avid lover of tools. The objects of everyday life -- hammers, saws, nails, wooden planks, and boards, he saw as a means to extend the body. He created compositions that honor the simple but necessary. Books, book carts, shelves, and readers are caught in the act of the unremarkable. Shoppers wander amid grocery carts, canned goods, produce, in rows where birds and flowers spring forth from the aisles. History comes alive. Our blights, misfortunes, and honors are captured and stilled. Slavery, slaves chased, caught, hung. War, bombs, the bombed, burned. The winner, the inaugurated, hailed, and heralded. They painted the interiors of their apartments in bright tones. There was pattern and color everywhere. Many of Jacob’s paintings from the 1930s and 1940s chronicled, in large blocks of color sometimes delineated in bold outline, people on their stoops, street orators, pool halls, funerals, and the huddled poor.
Approximate Word count = 579
Approximate Pages = 2.3
(250 words per page double spaced)
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