color screenprint on Bainbridge two-ply rag paper 1986; pencil-signed and dated, editioned ap 11/25; printed by Lou Stovall, the Workshop, Washington DC (with blindstamp) Sight: 30 1/4 x 20 in. (76.8 x 50.8 cm.), Frame: 39 3/4 x 29 in. (101 x 73.7 cm.) Note: Jacob Armstead Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. After dropping out of school at age sixteen, he worked in a laundry and printing plant. He also attended classes at the Harlem Art Workshop taught by African American artist Charles Alston. This led to a scholarship to the American Artists School and then to a paid position with the Works Progress Administration. In 1941 he married painter Gwendolyn Knight who he had met as a student in the Harlem Community Art Center. During WWII he enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard and served on the first racially integrated crew on the USCGC Sea Cloud. In 1970 he became an art professor at the University of Washington. He taught at many different schools during his long career. His paintings focus on the history and struggles of peoples of African origins in America across the nation. His "Migration" series depicts the movement of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the rural South to the North after World War I. He was given his first major solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. His last work was a mosaic mural New York in Transit, installed in 2001 in the Times Square Subway station, N.Y. During his lifetime he was honored with many medals, retrospective exhibitions, and elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1998 he was awarded Washington State?s highest honor: the Washington Medal of Merit. In 1990 he was presented the U.S. National Medal of the Arts. Sources: AskArt.com; Mathew Baigell, Dictionary of American Art; Michael David Zellman, 300 Years of American Art

Matted and framed under acrylic.