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‘I am part of the black community, so I am the black community speaking’
Christine Lindey pays tribute to the great Afro-American artist JACOB LAWRENCE who throughout his painting promoted the interests of his class and race
(L to R) Ironers; Wounded Man

JACOB LAWRENCE (1917- 2000) was precocious and prolific and his early critical success continued throughout his long life.

Yet, compared with his white US peers such as Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning, who has heard of him?

He was seven years old when his mother became a single parent and, after a few years in a foster home, he moved to Harlem with his mother and siblings where she earned her living as domestic help. The sights, sounds, dramas, joys and hardships of Harlem life would become the main subject of his paintings.

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