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Jacob Lawrence painted The Migration Series in 1940–41: 60 panels tracing the Great Migration of Black Americans from the rural South to Northern cities. In 1942, the series was divided between two collections: the Phillips Collection acquired the odd-numbered panels and the Museum of Modern Art the even-numbered ones.

Jacob Lawrence — The Migration Series (1940–41)

ArtHistory

The story behind the card

Lawrence was only 23 when he finished the series; he had grown up in Harlem, and his own parents had moved north during the Great Migration. He painted all sixty panels at the same time, one colour at a time, so the set would stay visually unified, and gave each a short caption. In 1941 Fortune magazine reproduced 26 of them, and a show at a New York gallery made him the first Black artist represented by a major New York gallery. The work was first titled The Migration of the Negro. For a 1993 touring exhibition that reunited all the panels, Lawrence revised the captions and the series took its present name. The two museums usually show their halves separately and bring them together for major exhibitions, such as MoMA's in 2015.

Türkçe oku
Amerikalı ressam Jacob Lawrence, 60 resimlik Göç Serisi'ni 1940–41'de yaptı. Seri, Siyah Amerikalıların güneyin kırsalından kuzeyin kentlerine göçünü, yani Büyük Göç'ü anlatır. 1942'de resimler ikiye bölündü: tek numaralıları Phillips Collection, çift numaralıları Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) satın aldı.

Lawrence seriyi bitirdiğinde yalnızca 23 yaşındaydı. Harlem'de büyümüştü; anne babası da Büyük Göç sırasında kuzeye gelenlerdendi. Altmış resmin hepsini aynı anda, renkleri sırayla tek tek sürerek boyadı, böylece seri bir bütün olarak kaldı; her resmin altına da kısa bir açıklama yazdı. 1941'de Fortune dergisi resimlerden 26'sını yayımladı; aynı yıl New York'ta açılan sergiyle Lawrence, büyük bir New York galerisinin temsil ettiği ilk Siyah sanatçı oldu. Serinin ilk adı The Migration of the Negro'ydu; bu ad, o dönemin bugün kullanılmayan bir ırk tanımını içeriyordu. Bütün resimleri yeniden bir araya getiren 1993 gezici sergisi için Lawrence açıklamaları yeniden yazdı ve seri bugünkü adını aldı. İki müze kendi yarısını genellikle ayrı sergiliyor; resimler yalnızca büyük sergilerde, örneğin MoMA'nın 2015'teki sergisinde, yeniden buluşuyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: The Migration Series
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