19th Anniversary

19th Anniversary 124 www.afamag.com | www.incollect.com King Jr. The campaign called for African Americans to confront racial segregation laws through acts of civil disobedience — acts that were ultimately met with violence and police brutality. The “rebels” in Lawrence’s painting and subsequent print represent the protesters who often faced mass arrest and whose persistence brought global attention to the severity of racial discrimination in the South. While there is a clear connection between the subject matter of the painting and print, the number of marked differences illustrate the creative freedom printmaking afforded the artist — and the degree to which he embraced it. The print retains the painting’s title, Two Rebels , yet it depicts only two officers and one “rebel.” Peter T. Nestbett, former director of the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, obser ves: “The aggressive crayonlike markings and isolation of the figures in the open expanse of white paper contrast significantly with the painting’s more harmonious and integrated surface.” 1 Although it lacks the vibrant color of the painting, the print’s black-and-white palette strengthens its visual potency and emphasizes the tension among the subjects portrayed. Fig. 3: Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), The Ant and the Grasshopper, 1997. Woodcut on Rives Light paper from a block hand-carved by the artist, 9⅞ x 8 inches. © 2018 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.