{
"data": {
"id": 157336,
"accession_number": "1994.2",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Creative Therapy, 1949. Jacob Lawrence (American, 1917\u20132000). 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. \u00a9 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Creative Therapy",
"creation_date": "1949",
"creation_date_earliest": 1949,
"creation_date_latest": 1949,
"artists_tags": [
"male",
"Black American Artists"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "casein over graphite",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "cream Grumbacher (blind stamp lower left) wove paper",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - American 20th Century",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Sheet: 56 x 76.4 cm (22 1/16 x 30 1/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.56,
"height_inch": 22,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0625,
"width": 0.764,
"width_inch": 30,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0625
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York",
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "signed, lower right, in black casein: Jacob Lawrence / 49; verso, by artist, center, in graphite: \"Creative Therapy\" / Hillside Hospital 1949\r\n",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 191183,
"title": "American Drawings from the Permanent Collection",
"description": "American Drawings from the Permanent Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 19-July 12, 1998).",
"opening_date": "1998-04-19T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 192019,
"title": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).",
"opening_date": "2000-08-27T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 213932,
"title": "Over the Line: the Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence",
"description": "Over the Line: the Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 6, 2002-January 5, 2003).",
"opening_date": "2002-10-06T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 181802,
"title": "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).",
"opening_date": "2006-06-09T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 204176,
"title": "Our Stories: African American Prints and Drawings",
"description": "Our Stories: African American Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 24-May 18, 2014).",
"opening_date": "2014-01-24T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Jacob Lawrence: Exhibition of New Paintings in Casein. The Downtown Gallery, New York, NY (October 24 - November 11, 1950).",
"opening_date": "1950-10-24T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Downtown Gallery, New York, NY, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Zlowe, New York NY)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1950",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Zlowe, New York, NY",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1950-?",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "(Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York, NY)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?-?",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "Andrew and Ann Dintenfass, Pacific Palisades, CA",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?-?",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "(Terry Dintenfass, Inc. New York, NY, sold to Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?-1994",
"sortorder": 6
},
{
"description": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1994-",
"sortorder": 7
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Jacob Lawrence included a self portrait in this work, at left, showing himself so closely focused on his canvas that it obscures his face.",
"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.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79973459"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Jacob Lawrence: Exhibition of New Paintings in Casein. Exh. Cat. New York: The Downtown Gallery, 1950.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: no. 4",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "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": null
},
{
"citation": "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": null
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, \u201cThe Cleveland Museum of Art Acquires Important Work by American Painter Jacob Lawrence,\u201d February 28, 1994, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
"page_number": null,
"url": "https://archive.org/details/cmapr3867"
},
{
"citation": "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": null
},
{
"citation": "Nesbett, Peter T. and Michelle DuBois. Jacob Lawrence: Paintings, Drawings, and Murals (1935-1999), A Catalogue Raisonn\u00e9. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: vol. 2, p. 113, no. P49-06",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "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": null
},
{
"citation": "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": null
},
{
"citation": "Donley, Gregory M., \"Geometric Means\", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 46 no. 05, May/June 2006",
"page_number": "Mentioned & reproduced: p. 4",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2006-05/page/4"
},
{
"citation": "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": null
},
{
"citation": "Lee, Key Jo, and William Griswold. Perceptual Drift: Black Art and an Ethics of Looking. Cleveland, OH : Cleveland Museum of Art, 2022.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 27, fig. 11",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Sheehan, Tanya. \"'A Different Kind of Struggle': Jacob Lawrence's Hospital Series and the Politics of Art as Therapy.\" The Art Bulletin 106, n. 2 (June 2024): 39-64.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 58, fig. 18; Mentioned: p. 39, 59,-61",
"url": ""
}
],
"catalogue_raisonne": "Nesbett and DuBois P49-06",
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1994.2",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Delia E. Holden Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 157336,
"creators": [
{
"id": 4050,
"description": "Jacob Lawrence (American, 1917\u20132000)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "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.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1917",
"death_year": "2000",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1994-02-15T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1949,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1949",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": true,
"updated_at": "2026-05-01 06:51:48.010000"
}
}