ARTS105_D06_202240
ARTS105_D06_202240: This is Harlem (Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden)
Artist Report Assignment Instructions
Overview
The student will write a 2 page research-based paper in current MLA format that focuses on 1 of the following artists that was introduced in chapter 7 or 8. Please choose from 1 of the following artists:
- Jacob Lawrence
- Susan Rothenberg
- Albrecht Dürer
- Rembrandt Van Rijn
- Philip Guston
- Ed Ruscha
- Mary Cassatt
- Channing Hansen
The research paper must include at least 3 scholarly references in addition to the course textbooks and the Bible.
Instructions
The format for the paper must follow the basic guidelines below:
Title Page: Include an image of your chosen artist’s work, as well as the year created, title of the work, medium, dimensions, and current location of the work.
Artist Biography: Include their year of birth/death, place of birth, family history, institutions of study, and biographical information of importance.
Art Movement: What art movement is the artist associated with? Describe the tenets that define that particular art movement.
Art Critics: What do art historians, art professionals and/or art critics say about your chosen artist and their body of work?
Personal Thoughts and Conclusion: What are your thoughts about the work? Some suggestions to write to about: Do you like or dislike the work? Why or why not? Are there any spiritual aspects to the work? Does the work evoke any feeling or emotion in the viewer? Does the work stimulate your intellect? What are the strengths/weaknesses of the artists’ body of work?
As always, proper spelling, grammar and sentence structure are of utmost importance.
Note: Your assignment will be checked for originality via the Turnitin plagiarism tool.
Artist Biography: Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence was among the most renowned African American artist a painters of his time. Some of his achievements as an artist include the production of narrative collections such as the Migration series and the War series and his illustration of the African American experience through painting done in vivid colors. He was born on September 7, 1917, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He was the firstborn to Jacob and Rosa Lee Lawrence. The father worked as a railroad cook. After his parents’ separation, which took place when he was seven, he was sent to foster with his siblings in Philadelphia. They later united with their mother and moved to Harlem. At Harlem, Lawrence enrolled in art classes at Utopia Children’s House. Lawrence continued with art classes at the Harlem Art workshop with artist Charles Alston as his mentor after dropping out of school at 16. He frequently made visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Biography).
He graduated from the American Artists School in New York, where he enrolled after winning a scholarship in 1937. He began creating narrative series founded on his already existing style of modernism. He painted more than 30 paintings. He also completed his best-known work, the Migration of the Negro, famously known as The Migration Series, and was exhibited at Edith Halpert’s Downtown Gallery, making Jacob the first African American to join the Gallery. During World War II, Jacob was assigned as a Coast Guard artist, where he documented different experiences, such as Coast Guard scenes emphasizing the daily routine of the Navy at work with the Painting the Bilges as an example of his work (Hills, 152). He taught in various schools, including the University of Washington Seattle, where he taught until his retirement.
Movement Artists Associated with Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence is associated with the Harlem Renaissance, which is described as a golden age for African American musicians, artists, and writers. The art movement gave the artists significant pride and control over the representation of the Black experience in American culture, setting the stage and pace for the civil rights movement. The period was also characterized by the consciousness of the existing inequalities and discrimination, and there was a rising interest in the rapidly changing modern world. Many experienced freedoms of expression through art (Azmi et al. 577). The Harlem Renaissance was a period that was characterized by a burst of creativity among African Americans. The art movement began roughly toward the end of World War I and extended into the mid-1930s. The movement had no single ideology or stylistic standards that unified the participants.