id: 157336 accession number: 1994.2 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1994.2 updated: 2019-07-18 08:12:27.784000 Creative Therapy, 1949. Jacob Lawrence (American, 1917-2000). Casein over graphite; sheet: 56 x 76.4 cm (22 1/16 x 30 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Delia E. Holden Fund 1994.2 © Estate of Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York title: Creative Therapy title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1949 creation date earliest: 1949 creation date latest: 1949 current location: creditline: Delia E. Holden Fund copyright: © Estate of Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York --- culture: America, 20th century technique: casein over graphite department: Drawings collection: DR - American 20th Century type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: Nesbett and DuBois P49-06 --- CREATORS * Jacob Lawrence (American, 1917-2000) - artist Jacob Lawrence (born 1917) has been a prominent artist since 1941 when, at age 24, he became the first African American to have a work in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His career, now spanning seven decades, has been devoted to documenting African-American life and history, from everyday scenes to the universal struggle for freedom, social justice, and human dignity. Moving to Harlem as a teenager in 1930, Lawrence was influenced by the artists, writers, and philosophers of the Harlem Renaissance-among them Romare Bearden, Langston Hughes, and W.E.B. DuBois-who fostered pride in African-American culture. Lawrence's subjects include the legendary abolitionist heroes Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and John Brown, and the story of the massive migration of African Americans from the rural South to the industrialized, urban North during the early decades of the 20th century. After thorough research, Lawrence chronicles the crucial events of each saga by creating a series of small paintings on paper in a modernist style of flat, brightly-colored forms. --- measurements: Sheet: 56 x 76.4 cm (22 1/16 x 30 1/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: cream Grumbacher (blind stamp lower left) wove paper watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: signed, lower right, in black casein: Jacob Lawrence / 49; verso, by artist, center, in graphite: "Creative Therapy" / Hillside Hospital 1949 translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: American Drawings from the Permanent Collection opening date: 1998-04-19T00:00:00 American Drawings from the Permanent Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (April 19-July 12, 1998). title: Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2000-08-27T00:00:00 Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). title: Over the Line: the Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence opening date: 2002-10-06T00:00:00 Over the Line: the Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (October 6, 2002-January 5, 2003). title: The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2006-06-09T00:00:00 The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. MOCA Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006). title: Our Stories: African American Prints and Drawings opening date: 2014-01-24T00:00:00 Our Stories: African American Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (January 24-May 18, 2014). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Jacob Lawrence: Exhibition of New Paintings in Casein. The Downtown Gallery, New York, NY (October 24 - November 11, 1950). --- PROVENANCE (Downtown Gallery, New York, NY, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Zlowe, New York NY) date: 1950 footnotes: citations: Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Zlowe, New York, NY date: 1950-? footnotes: citations: (Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York, NY) date: ?-? footnotes: citations: Andrew and Ann Dintenfass, Pacific Palisades, CA date: ?-? footnotes: citations: (Terry Dintenfass, Inc. New York, NY, sold to Cleveland Museum of Art) date: ?-1994 footnotes: citations: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1994- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Jacob Lawrence included a self portrait in this work, at left, showing himself so closely focused on his canvas that it obscures his face. digital description: Jacob Lawrence established an important and successful career early on, working with a prestigious New York gallery and becoming the first African American artist to be represented in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He encountered anxiety and self-doubt, however, leading him to undertake a voluntary stay at Hillside Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Queens from 1949 through 1950. While there, he produced a series of drawings, to which this sheet belongs, depicting his experiences. In the present work, patients paint together, guided by a physician who saw art as a means of therapy. Lawrence experimented with geometric forms, flattened planes, and slanting recession of space to shift the image's perspective and place the viewer within the scene. wall description: Despite his success, Lawrence's intensifying anxieties and self-doubt led to his voluntary confinement to a psychiatric facility in 1949. Nevertheless, he produced 11 paintings including Creative Therapy, executed on paper with casein, a liquid medium in which the pigment binder is made from acidified skim milk. Experimenting with Cubist-derived ideas, he developed flat, shallow planes of space punctured by the precipitously tipped table in the foreground, shifting the point of view. As Lawrence struggled with finding a new direction for his own work, he presented a variety of modernist styles in the patients' paintings and even transformed their palettes into gaily colored abstract designs. The artist included himself in the scene, but he hides behind his picture, which is also not visible. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS DeGrazia, Diane, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000. page number: Mentioned: pp. 268-269, 298; Reproduced: p. 269 url: Nesbett, Peter T. and Michelle DuBois, eds. Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence. Exh. Cat. Washington, D.C.: Phillips Collection, 2001. page number: Mentioned: p. 129; reproduced: p. 130 url: Litt, Steven. "Art Museum Obtains Jacob Lawrence Work." Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 3, 1994, 7-E. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 7-E url: Cole, Mark. African American Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013. page number: Mentioned: p. 18; Reproduced: p. 4 url: Nesbett, Peter T. and Michelle DuBois. Jacob Lawrence: Paintings, Drawings, and Murals (1935-1999), A Catalogue Raisonné. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: vol. 2, p. 113, no. P49-06 url: Jacob Lawrence: Exhibition of New Paintings in Casein. Exh. Cat. New York: The Downtown Gallery, 1950. page number: Mentioned: no. 4 url: Pearson, Ralph M. The Modern Renaissance in American Art: Presenting the Work and Philosophy of Fifty-Four Distinguished Artists. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954. page number: Mentioned: p. 167 url: Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006. page number: Mentioned: p. 121; Reproduced: p. 27, no 87 url: --- IMAGES