SALEM — What is the cost of democracy for all? That question has never been more relevant than it is today, with the 2020 elections looming and the impeachment trial of the president of the United States about to begin.
Jacob Lawrence, perhaps America’s most significant black artist, asked the same question in the late 1940s. For more than five years, he spent countless hours in the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library, poring through historical texts that included letters, first-person accounts and coded messages from individuals on all sides of the American Revolution.
Finally, in 1954, just as the Supreme Court ruled to desegregate the nation’s schools, he began to paint.
The result is “Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle,” which opens Saturday at the Peabody Essex Museum. It has been more than 60 years since the 30 12-inch-by-16-inch panels that embody the “Struggle” series have been displayed in one exhibit. Organized by PEM and many years in the making, it’s a wondrous, thought-provoking collection created at the start of the civil rights movement.
It’s at the Salem museum through April 26, when its national tour moves to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
This weekend through Monday, Martin Luther King Day, PEM offers free admission to all. A roster of related programs, including a presentation by Lynn’s Raw Art Works Saturday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., will also take place.
It’s appropriate that this exhibition opens here, in the birthplace of the American Revolution.
Brian Kennedy, the museum’s CEO and director, encourages viewers to “listen to these works. There is a lot of noise in this exhibition.” Indeed, there is. Follow the urge to get up close to these small vibrant, colorful paintings and the accompanying descriptive captions. The words and images have much to say; they are provocative and filled with tension. You can imagine the complex struggles these people faced.
Consider the struggles of Margaret Corbin who, in 1776, joined her husband at the Battle of Port Washington on Manhattan Island. When he was killed by the British, she assumed his post, firing the cannon with great skill. History tells us she struggled all her life, as a disabled veteran who earned a pension half the size of the men’s.
Or the slaves who filed a petition demanding freedom in 1773: “We have no property! We have no wives! No children! We have no city! No country!” The petition was denied.
A panel of a farmer struggling under the burden of a wagon filled with hay is accompanied with words from the Declaration of Independence.
Works by three contemporary artists — Bethany Collins, Hank Willis Thomas and Derrick Adams — uniquely show that America’s struggle for democracy and inclusion continue today. The exhibition ends with Adams’ replication of Lawrence’s living room, including his stuffed comfy chair and the playing of a Sweet Honey in the Rock vinyl album that has finished, with the needle stuck in the end groove creating a static noise.
All but five of the series’ paintings are included here; the whereabouts of those are unknown. The exhibition’s three curators hope media coverage of the show during its national tour will bring the missing works to light.
Born in 1917, Jacob Lawrence broke through the color line of New York’s segregated art world. At age 23, he created the “Migration” series, which became the first work by a black artist to be acquired by the Museum of Modern Art.
Lawrence, who died in 2000, stated he hoped “the paintings … will depict the struggles of a people to create a nation and their attempt to build a democracy.” He succeeded magnificently.
“This truly historic exhibition offers a rare opportunity to encounter Lawrence’s greatest and least-known works while considering our own relationship to the ongoing struggle for life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” said PEM’s associate curator, Lydia Gordon. “His work continues to influence and impact so many today because his messages are urgent, pressing and timeless.”
For more information, go to www.PEM.org.
