Over the Line:
The Art & Life of Jacob Lawrence Web Cast
90 Minutes
Requires QuickTime

Premiered December 4, 2001.
Join with staff at the world famous Whitney Museum of Art in New York City to experience the works of renowned African-American artist, Jacob Lawrence. For more than 65 years, Jacob Lawrence was both an impassioned observer and storyteller who focused on the struggle for freedom and justice in America from the Civil War period of the 1860s through the civil rights movement of the 1960s to the end of the twentieth century, exploring diverse aspects of the African American experience. Balancing line, color, form, and gesture, Lawrence's drawings and paintings communicate his reflections on American culture, and make visible the realities of race and racial differences in the process of Americanization. Organized around themes, such as "Interiors and Exteriors," "Performance and Games," Work and Workers," and " Struggle," the exhibition examines the complex nature of Lawrence's work and the artist's stylistic development and experimentation within the same theme over time.

 

Supporting Lessons

Jacob Lawrence Panel Project
Example of Panel - Example of Sketches

Standard Areas:
ELA
NYS Standard 1 - Language for Information and Understanding
Art
NYS Standard 1 - Creating Art
NYS Standard 4
Understanding the Cultural contributions of the Arts

Target Grade Levels:  4-6

ELA - Students will be able to understand storytelling through art and historical context and apply that understanding to written language.

ART - Students will understand cultural perspectives in art through study of and understanding of the work of Jacob Lawrence.  Based on that understanding, students will create artwork by developing ideas in a sketchbook, and use those ideas to create a series of drawings which tell the story of a special event in their lives.

Jacob Lawrence Neighborhood Photo Project

Standard area(s):
Art – NYS Standard 1 – Creating Art
NYS Standard 4 – Understanding the Cultural contributions of the Arts
Target Grade Level(s): 4-6

ART - Students will understand cultural perspectives in art through study of and understanding of the work of Jacob Lawrence. Based on that understanding, students will create artwork by developing ideas in a sketchbook, and use those ideas to create a series of drawings which tell the story of a special event in their lives

Students will be familiar with basic knowledge of digital photography – composition, how to use camera, etc.

Jacob Lawrence and the Blues Aesthetic

Standard Areas
Art and Music
NYS Standard 1 - Creating Art
NYS Standard 4 - Understanding the Cultural contributions of the Arts
ELA- NYS Standard 1 - Language for Information and Understanding

Target Grade Levels: 6-8

Neighborhood Patterns and Rhythms in Music and Art

Art - Students will understand relationship of visual art and music through study of the work of Jacob Lawrence.  Based on that understanding, students will create artwork by creating a neighborhood 'snapshot' combining photographs and music sampling.

ELA - Students will be able to experience the relationship between images conveyed in written literature and those conveyed in art.