Discover the influence and cultural impact of painter Jacob Lawrence’s life’s work

“If at times my artworks do not express the conventionally beautiful, there is always an effort to express the universal beauty of man's continuous struggle to lift his social position and to add dimension to his spiritual being.”

— Jacob Lawrence, 1970

SCAD Museum of Art, in collaboration with the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation and with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, presents a scholarly symposium centered on the influence, scope and cultural impact of Jacob Lawrence’s life’s work. The symposium brings together established and emerging Lawrence scholars and artists who studied with Lawrence or whose work is influenced by his legacy to participate in a daylong series of paper presentations and roundtable discussions, which will inform and shape a 2017 traveling exhibition during the year of the artist’s centenary.

Symposium participants will generate themes, lines of inquiry and dialogue to suggest thematic groupings and artists for the exhibition, which is co-curated by Laurie Ann Farrell, executive director of exhibitions, and Storm Janse van Rensburg, head curator of exhibitions. These topics will provide new insights into the artist’s oeuvre and legacy as well as consider Lawrence’s work through lines of influence and visual comparison to other artists — those who influenced him, his contemporaries and those artists influenced by him.

Symposium events include a plenary session; a daylong series of presentations, artist roundtables and public discussions; and a scholar and artist debriefing breakfast to allow the group to revisit specific interests and explore emergent issues. Select symposium papers will be included in the accompanying centennial exhibition catalog.

Coinciding with this significant event, SCAD Museum of Art will present an exhibition of Jacob Lawrence prints, “History, Labor, Life,” in the Walter O. Evans Center for African American Studies, curated by van Rensburg.

Schedule

9:45 a.m.
Welcome
Laurie Ann Farrell
Executive Director of SCAD Museums and Exhibitions

10 a.m.
Address
Dr. Walter O. Evans
SCAD Board of Visitors Member and President, Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation

10:15–11:15 a.m.
Memory and Remembrance: Working with Jacob Lawrence
Michelle Dubois, Ph.D.
Associate Director of Winston Art Group

1–2 p.m.
Blue in Green: Jacob Lawrence and Viridian
Richard Powell, Ph.D.
John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History and Dean of Humanities, Trinity College of Arts and Sciences at Duke University

2:15–3:15 p.m.
Let the Record Show: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence
Sandra Jackson-Dumont
Frederick P. and Sandra P. Rose Chairman of Education at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

3:30–4:30 p.m.
Jacob Lawrence’s Artistic Legacy: Artists Speak
Steven Nelson, Ph.D. (MODERATOR)
Director of the African Studies Center and Professor of African and African American Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles
Derrick Adams, Artist
Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Artist
Meleko Mokgosi, Artist
Barbara Earl Thomas, Artist

5–7 p.m.
Opening Reception: History, Labor, Life: The Prints of Jacob Lawrence

Daily admission to the museum is free for all SCAD students, faculty, staff and museum members. Symposium discussions are open to the public with the cost of museum admission.

SCAD Museum of Art, in collaboration with the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation and with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, presents a scholarly symposium centered on the influence, scope and cultural impact of Jacob Lawrence's life's work.

This symposium is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.