The 1000++ Artworks of media Tempera and containing the word jacob lawrence, tempera, social realism, 1950

The idealism presented in the preamble to the Constitution trails off through Lawrence’s use of an ellipsis in his title caption, suggesting the delegates’ four months of intense work in Philadelphia’s summer heat. The painting shows representatives of the original thirteen British- American colonie...

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Depicting a brutal physical conflict between Black men and their oppressors, this painting represents the suppressed revolt planned by the enslaved Captain James to free populations between Greene County, Georgia, and Halifax County, North Carolina, in April 1810. Under ferocious attack, the central...

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The forceful shapes of two freshly killed Rocky Mountain elk dominate this stark composition. Even in death, their antlers, dramatically silhouetted against the white and blue snow, are locked, as if engaged in battle. Now, the elk share a common enemy, a fact Lawrence emphasized with bright blood s...

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When General George Washington failed to recapture Philadelphia from the British in 1777, he led the Continental army in retreat to an encampment in Valley Forge, northwest of the city. In this panel, Lawrence explores the toll that these military setbacks and the brutal winter took upon the America...

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On the night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere, a Boston silversmith and founding revolutionary, barely escaped capture as he rode through enemy lines across eastern Massachusetts to warn residents that British troops were coming. Revere recalled the events in a 1798 letter from which Lawrence excerpte...

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Jacob Lawrence/

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In this striking panel, Lawrence depicts an impenetrable wall of twenty-two black cannonballs to symbolize the successful twenty-two-day siege at Yorktown, Virginia, in which American troops forced the British occupying the town to surrender. This battle, celebrated for the heroic leadership of Alex...

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Margaret Cochran Corbin fought with her cannoneer husband in the Battle of Fort Washington, in what is now Upper Manhattan. Taking her husband’s place at the cannon, she fired bravely until wounded and captured. Corbin later joined the 'Invalid Regiment' at West Point. She struggled as a disabled ve...

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A legendary episode in American history, recently popularized in a landmark Broadway musical, the final confrontation between personal and political rivals former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and Vice President Aaron Burr transpired July 11, 1804, in Weehawken, New Jersey, on a popul...

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Lawrence depicts a menacing officer of the British Royal Navy lording over American sailors whom British forces have captured, bound, and injured. Despite their physical bulk and apparent heroic strength, the men bow their heads in subordination to their oppressive new commander. Lawrence’s subject ...

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Here, British forces of Hessian mercenaries, colonial Loyalists, and Native Americans fight the 'rebels,' including Black soldiers, at the Battle of Bennington, which ended in a victory for the patriots. By quoting a Hessian soldier’s letter, Lawrence used the words of the defeated to testify to the...

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In his influential pamphlet The American Crisis, English-born American political theorist and abolitionist Thomas Paine equated Britain’s tyranny over the colonists with slavery. In the wake of military setbacks, he sensed a wavering in many Americans—'fair-weather soldiers'— and urged them to renew...

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The title of this panel is drawn from a speech delivered by Virginia statesman Patrick Henry defending the colonial cause. Its reference to enslavement galvanized patriots to demand liberty from the British—an argument hypocritical to some, coming from a Southern enslaver. In the painting, Lawrence ...

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Against horizontal registers of red, white, and blue paint, Lawrence laid out the aftermath of General Andrew Jackson’s remarkable victory over the British on January 8, 1815, at the Battle of New Orleans. Jackson credited the resounding victory to the valiant participation of the Kentuckians, Creol...

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American Revolutionary officer-turned-traitor Benedict Arnold used a numerical substitution system to inform the British of General George Washington’s secret plan to cross the Hudson River in 1780. Lawrence conceived of this exchange close-up as the informer whispers into the ear of his contact. El...

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This dynamic scene depicts American soldiers battling warriors belonging to a confederacy of Indigenous peoples led by Shawnee Chief Tecumseh and supported by the British Empire. Lawrence derived the panel’s title from a speech the chief delivered to British General Henry A. Proctor, in which he emp...

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This panel’s title comes from a letter President Thomas Jefferson wrote to Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark, who were leading an expedition across the American West. Despite Jefferson’s general disregard for Indigenous rights, he asked that the explorers approach Native p...

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An inscription on the back of this painting identifies its subject as the Battle of Lake Erie, a landmark American naval victory over the British that took place in Ohio on September 10, 1813. In contrast to the standard heroic narrative, Lawrence’s desolate scene shows a lone American seaman strand...

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