Jacob Lawrence

Tombstones
1942

Not on view

Date
1942

Classification
Drawings

Medium
Opaque watercolor on paper

Dimensions
Sheet (Irregular): 30 7/8 × 22 13/16in. (78.4 × 57.9 cm)

Accession number
43.14

Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase

Rights and reproductions
© The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

API
artworks/1192

Characteristic of Jacob Lawrence’s work in the 1940s are subjects drawn from the streets and interiors of Harlem. Although he believed that you cannot “tell a story in a single painting,” Lawrence occasionally worked outside the series structure for which he is best known. In uninflected areas of bold color, Tombstones pictures neighbors and residents in front of an apartment building. It encapsulates the full sweep of life within the African American community, from the cradle—the baby carriage at left, the Madonna-like mother and child at right—to the grave, marked at center by the tombstone seller’s wares. Painted a year after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and a year before the artist would be inducted into the United States Coast Guard as a steward’s mate, Tombstones displays Lawrence’s unflinching realism regarding the cycle of life and death, in his own community and beyond.

Audio

Jacob Lawrence, Tombstones, 1942

From Where We Are (Spanish)

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Jacob Lawrence, Tombstones, 1942

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Narrator: Durante los calurosos días de verano, la vida de los habitantes de Harlem se trasladaba a las aceras. Esta pintura de Jacob Lawrence de 1942 muestra a los vecinos pasando el tiempo al frente del edificio en el que viven. Observa el cartel sobre la tienda del sótano: Lápidas.
Las cruces y los bloques de piedra desnudos que se ofrecen en venta resultan chocantes en esta animada y colorida escena. A la derecha, una madre acuna a su bebé. Sobre la escalera, un hombre charla con una mujer sonriente asomada desde uno de los apartamentos. Lo que aquí se observa es el ciclo mismo de la vida en la escalera de entrada a un edificio de la ciudad.
Sin polemizar, Lawrence mostraba que la muerte era una presencia tangible en Harlem. Gwendolyn Knight, artista, esposa de Lawrence.
Gwendolyn Knight: Creo que Jake simplemente retrató lo que había allí. Y sus primeras pinturas eran sobre la escena de Harlem –lo que había allí–, y algunas cosas no eran muy agradables. Supongo que buena parte de aquello no era agradable porque no vivíamos en una sociedad que fuera muy agradable; y él era tan buen artista que resultaba muy conmovedor, muy emotivo y muy real.
Jacob Lawrence, Tombstones, 1942

From Where We Are

0:00

Jacob Lawrence, Tombstones, 1942

0:00

Narrator: On hot summer days, life in Harlem moved out onto the pavement. This 1942 painting by Jacob Lawrence shows residents passing time in front of their apartment building. Notice the sign over the store in the basement: Tombstones.
The stark stone slabs and crosses for sale seem out of place in this lively, colorful setting. A mother rocks her baby on the right. A man stands above on the steps, chatting up a smiling woman in one of the apartments. We're watching a life cycle in progress on a city stoop.
Without polemics, Lawrence reminded viewers that death was a visible presence in Harlem. Lawrence's wife, the artist Gwendolyn Knight.
Gwendolyn Knight: I think Jake just recorded what was there. And his early paintings are of the Harlem scene-what was there-some of it was not pleasant. I guess a great deal of it was not pleasant because we didn't live in a society that was very pleasant; and he happened to be such a good artist that it was very moving, very touching, and very real.