QUESTIONS	Move your cursor over the question to find out the answer or go to the printable version of questions and answers.
What do you think was the artist's opinion of John Brown and how did he convey this viewpoint through his use of color and design?
Find some symbols that Lawrence used and explain their relationship to the story.
Notice that some of the prints show figures placed horizontally (going across), others arranged vertically (up and down) and others have a diagonal (at an angle) movement. What are the differing emotions and tempos that each placement conveys?
Lawrence was a Social Realist in that much of his work dealt with social issues and problems that related to his particular community. Are there circumstances in your school or neighborhood that you think are wrong and would like to change? How would you present these issues in a visual way?
How does Lawrence keep the viewers' interest from one image to the next?
The prints contain shapes that are partially abstract and partially realistic. Choose an image which combines both abstract shapes and realistic description, and explain how the two aspects have been combined.

VOCABULARY

Abstract: Having freedom from representational qualities or, as is the case in Jacob Lawrence's work, distilled from the appearance of some real object or scene. The work may be distorted in form, color or shape.

Expressionism: Art in which the emotions of an artist take precedence over a rational and true-to-life rendering of subject matter. Images in The John Brown Series contain contrasting colors and lines and shapes that indicate movement, heightening the expressive power of the work.

Design: The composition or arrangement of elements in a work of art.

Geometric: Based on the circle, square, rectangle, triangle. Having a regular, symmetrical shape.

Gouache: A painting medium made of water-based opaque pigments. Lawrence based his prints in The John Brown Series on a series of gouache paintings he had created many years before.

Narrative: The depiction of a specific story in either painted or graphic (drawing, print) form.

Series: A set of things that follow each other, one after another. They usually have an idea or theme which links them. Jacob Lawrence would often present a story or idea in a series of pictures.

Silk screen: A stencil process. The design is divided according to color areas. For each color, a stencil is prepared on silk stretched over a frame. Paint or ink is then squeezed through the respective screens.

Stencil: A process in which the design is cut into a thin, flexible material (such as cardboard) and the color is brushed through the openings onto paper, fabric, wall surfaces. etc.

MORE FACTS

The John Brown Series was originally done as gouache and tempera paintings in 1941. The silk screen prints were made 36 years later in 1977.

Jacob Lawrence, who frequently produced historical narratives, also painted a series about the lives of Frederick Douglass (black leader and statesman) and Harriet Tubman (an escaped slave who liberated more than 300 slaves through the Underground Railroad).

When Jacob Lawrence was invited to join the Downtown Gallery in 1941, he became the first black artist to be represented by a major New York Gallery.

The titles for The John Brown Series were all composed by the artist.

In preparation for his series on black history, Lawrence used the research facilities of the Schomberg Collection at the Harlem Branch of the New York Public Library.

MORE RESOURCES

Duggleby, John. Story Painter: The Life of Jacob Lawrence. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998.

Lawrence, Jacob, Peter T. Nesbett, and Michelle Dubois. Complete Jacob Lawrence. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000.

Patton, Sharon F. African-American Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Wheat, Ellen Harkins. Jacob Lawrence: American Painter. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986.