Birmingham Museum of Art

Artists often draw on historical events for inspiration. But American history through the brush of Jacob Lawrence has its own distinctive style. The African American artist is considered one of the great modernist painters of the 20th century. An exhibit featuring his series of paintings “Struggle. . . From the History of the American People” opened Friday at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

Lawrence was born in 1917. The painter came of age in New York City and studied with artists of the Harlem Renaissance. He gained national prominence in his twenties and is best known for collections of paintings that tell a story. His most famous series depicts the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the North in the early 1900s.

Artist Barbara Earl Thomas was a student of his at the University of Washington in the mid-1970s. They became close, lifelong friends. She knew him for almost 2 years before she realized that Lawrence was a star in the art world. 

“I said that you’d been holding out on me. I said you’re famous,” she recalls. “He just smiled and he said, ‘Oh, Barbara.’ And that was that.”

Lawrence was understated and soft-spoken. But he spoke forcefully through his artwork. The powerof the Struggle series practically jumps out of the panels despite their relatively small size.

“They’re really intimate,” says BMA American art curator Katelyn Crawford. “These are panels that, if you took their frames off, could be held in your hands almost like a book.”

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