Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1917, Jacob Lawrence moved to Harlem as a teenager, where he received his early artistic training at the Harlem Art Workshop. He gained national prominence in the early 1940s as the first African-American artist to be represented by a major New York gallery, following the critical success of his multi-panel narrative series.

Lawrence is best known for his use of bold, flat shapes and a vibrant, high-contrast color palette to depict themes of migration, labor, and social struggle. His work often focused on historical figures and the collective history of the African diaspora, rendered through a distinct aesthetic that synthesized modernist cubism with the visual traditions of West African and Meso-American art.

Throughout his later career, Lawrence balanced his studio practice with a significant commitment to arts education, serving as a professor at the University of Washington for 16 years. His legacy remains central to 20th-century American art, with his works held in the permanent collections of major institutions worldwide.