Jacob Lawrence Poster The Relay Race Lithograph Olympic Games Munich 1972
About the Item
- Creator:Jacob Lawrence (Artist)
- Dimensions:Height: 39.77 in (101 cm)Width: 25.2 in (64 cm)Depth: 0.4 in (1 cm)
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1972
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:Praha, CZ
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2456330072922
Jacob Lawrence
One of the first Black artists to receive national acclaim in the United States, Jacob Armstead Lawrence (1917–2000) was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, before moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and then to Harlem, New York, in 1930. While enrolled in a community after-school arts program, Lawrence developed his talents as a painter, drawing praise and encouragement from artist Charles Alston, who ran the program at the time. Despite his family’s financial struggles during the Great Depression, Lawrence continued his pursuit of the arts, developing a series of multipanel realist paintings dedicated to iconic Black historical figures, including Toussaint L’Ouverture, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. In 1938, he had his first solo exhibition at the Harlem YMCA and had begun to work for the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
In 1940, Lawrence received a grant from a philanthropic organization called the Rosenwald Fund, which allowed him to begin what would become his most famous work: The Migration Series, a narrative piece comprised of casein tempera paint on 60 18-by-12-inch hardboard panels featuring captions he’d written before he began to paint. (Fellow artist and future wife Gwendolyn Knight helped with the text.) Lawrence’s series focuses on the Great Migration of Black Americans from the agricultural South to the industrial North between 1910 and 1940.
By the end of the 1940s, Lawrence had earned widespread recognition for his important work and was the most celebrated Black artist in the United States. He continued covering Black historical figures throughout his career, though he also painted social commentaries on contemporary issues, like World War II and civil rights. He taught at the Art Students League in New York and at Black Mountain College in North Carolina (upon invitation from artist Josef Albers), among other institutions.
Lawrence’s works can be found in the collections of many major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and elsewhere. His painting The Builders hangs in the White House today, as it was acquired by the White House Historical Association in 2007.
Find watercolor paintings, prints and more by Jacob Lawrence on 1stDibs.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Litoměřice, Czech Republic
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 3 days of delivery.
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- Olympic Games Munich 1972 Limited Edition Signed by Artist Jacob LawrenceLocated in Pewsey, GBRare Olympic Games Munich 1972 Limited Edition 'Poster entitled 'Five Black Athletes in a Relay Race' signed by Jacob Lawrence Dimension: Sheet Size: Length 109.5 × 69.5 cm Image Size: Length: 87 × 64 cm Edition Size: 200 Edition Number: 24 marked in pencil by Jacob Lawrence Signed: Jacob Lawrence 71 in pencil by Jacob Lawrence Serigraph – Screenprint Printed words on the left hand corner of the sheet read as follows: © Edition Olympia 1972 Gmbh 1971 Dietz Officin Lengmoos Bold colours fresh and vibrant as when originally issued Slight ruffling of the paper in a small section of the bottom of the sheet and two minor spots of foxing at the bottom border of the sheet. Overall condition: Very good for age Jacob Lawrence was one of a number of artists who were invited to design posters for the 1972 Olympic Games held in Munich. He created an image to commemorate the involvement of black athletes in the Olympic Games, as track was a field in which they had traditionally excelled. This iconic poster depicts five black runners with grimacing faces take giant strides around a large, curving track as they head toward the finish line. They hold batons in their hands to show that they are competing in relay race. Each athlete is shown with his arms, legs, and head in a slightly different position, one has his head back and his right leg stretched forward, almost straight. Lawrence used bold colours to depict the runners' stylised faces and legs as well as the repeated shapes of the track. Lawrence combined the flat, simplified shapes and empty spaces of modernism with silhouetted figures and the rhythmic patterns and colours of Harlem scenes. He labelled his pictorial style 'dynamic cubism'. Lawrence's poster embraces several themes: a) the intensity of competition in a relay race with invariably dramatic endings; b) memories of the African American athlete, Jesse Owens' four gold medals, including one as a member of the 400-metre relay team, won at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin in the face of Nazi claims of racial superiority; and c) the determination of African Americans to compete on the world stage after centuries of discrimination in their home-country. Biographical Details of the Artist Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlanta City, New Jersey, in 1917 as his family travelled north, part of the Great Migration of people from the South. After his parents split up, his mother moved the family to Harlem where a movement known as the Harlem Renaissance was flourishing. Lawrence studied painting the Harlem Art Workshop and received much encouragement from African American artists, Augusta Savage and Charles Alston and art critic, Alain Locke. He received national recognition at the age of twenty-three with The Migration of the Negro, an exhibition of sixty paintings about the Great Migration. This series was so admired that both the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., wanted to buy them. Eventually, it was divided between the two museums. During World War II, Lawrence was drafted into the U.S. Coast Guard, where he served on the first integrated ship and was promoted to a rank higher than the steward's mate. After the war, his career included commissions for murals and a Time magazine cover; teaching positions at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and the University of Washington in Seattle. Among the awards Lawrence received in his distinguished are the following: Spingarn Medal (1970), the Us National Medal of Arts (1990), Algur H Meadows Award for Excellence (1996) and The Washington Medal of Art (1998) The 1972 Munich poster...Category
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