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Article: Harlem on his mind
- Article from:
- The Village Voice
- Article date:
- January 29, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Village Voice Jan 29, 2002. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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OVER THE LINE: THE ART AND LIFE
OF JACOB LAWRENCE
Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue
Through February 3
It is sad but not surprising that the tastemakers currently touting Norman Rockwell as "a master of narrative" and "an artist who speaks to all people" ignore a contemporary of Rockwell's whose work better embodies these qualities. That artist is Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000), now the subject of a probing, occasionally soaring, retrospective at the Whitney.
To understand why Lawrence is richer than Rockwell, you need only spend time in the gallery containing his great narrative masterpiece, the 60-panel Migration of the Negro. Unlike Rockwell's "feel-good" pictures, ...