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Summer Street Scene in Harlem

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Summer Street Scene in Harlem

1948
20 1/16 x 24 1/8 in. (51 x 61.2 cm)

Jacob Lawrence
United States (Atlantic City, NJ, 1917 - 2000, Seattle, WA)

Object Type: Painting
Medium and Support: Tempera on gesso panel
Credit Line: Marion Stratton Gould Fund
Accession Number: 1991.5
Location: Currently on view
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Jacob Lawrence put his own stylistic innovations on the flattened surfaces, distorted shapes, and bold colors of modernism. Here his vibrant palette and energetic composition express the joy and vitality of a summer in Harlem. Children play with their soap box and approach a shaved ice vendor; adults gather in conversation. Lawrence moved to Harlem with his family at the age of twelve, and he was greatly influenced by the creative community flourishing there.

Lawrence chronicled the lives, accomplishments, and challenges experienced by Black communities in the United States. His best-known series, The Migration of the Negro (1941), depicted the mass movement of Black people who relocated from the American South to the North, Midwest, and West in search of economic and social mobility. Lawrence’s parents themselves moved to the North in this exodus known as the Great Migration, which took place from the 1910s through the 1970s.


[Gallery label text, 2024]

Marks
Artist's signature, lower right: Jacob Lawrence / 48


Provenance
The Downtown Gallery, New York, NY; Alfred E. Jones, Jr., New York, NY; Vanderwoude Tananbaum Gallery, New York, NY; purchased by the Gallery in 1991

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Web Links See links to web pages and lesson plans
Frederick Douglass MAG webpage with links to Frederick Douglass and African-American experience resources at MAG
Lesson Plan Art and Social Studies lesson plan created by the Memorial Art Gallery based on Jacob Lawrence's Ices II (Evans Collection) and Summer Street Scene in Harlem (MAG collection) emphasizing looking and learning and an Art Room activity.
Seeing America Inservice Materials from a teacher in-service presentation Spring 2008
Art Alive: Summer Street Scene in Harlem Using MAG's Learning to Look/Looking to Learn philosophy, guide students' looking and use open-ended questions to elicit personal responses. Includes many suggestions for classroom activities and connections to reinforce ELA skills.
Seeing America Chapter on Jacob Lawrence's Summer Street Scene in Harlem, written by Lowery Stokes Sims.
MAGexplore MAGexplore provides in-depth information and close looking at over 200 objects in MAG's collection.
In Motion: the African-American Migration Experience Created by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, this website includes images, textual material, and lesson plans related to the Harlem Renaissance.
Jacob Lawrence: Over the Line In conjunction with the exhibition Jacob Lawrence: Over the Line at the Phillips Collection, this website explores the life and work of Jacob Lawrence. Teaching Resources and artwork by children inspired by Lawrence are also included in this website.


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