Jacob Lawrence
Lifeboat
1944
Scroll
Jacob Lawrence
Lifeboat
1944
Physical Qualities
Opaque watercolor over graphite, Sheet: 568 x 785 mm. (22 3/8 x 30 7/8 in.)
Image: 529 x 746 mm. (20 13/16 x 29 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
Purchased as the gift of the Art Committee of the Women's Cooperative Civic League
Object Number
1946.135
When Jacob Lawrence was drafted into the U.S. Coast Guard (then part of the U.S. Navy) during World War II, his "Migration of the American Negro" series and his narrative paintings on the lives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Toussaint L’Ouverture were already well known. Serving from 1943 to 1945 as a public relations specialist, he was encouraged by his commanding officers to continue painting by documenting life at sea. This watercolor depicts a lifeboat from the USS "General W. P. Richardson". Two men, rendered in the same blues as the color of the sea, operate brightly colored ropes and chains. Though the sky is calm and the two men appear to be in control, the sea rises up behind them, tilting at an unsettling angle.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 1946; Downtown Gallery, New York
Morgan Dowty, BMA, "1939: Exhibiting Black Art at the BMA," June 13 - October 28, 2018.
James Smalls, The Baltimore Museum of Art, "Henry Ossawa Tanner and his Influence in America," 7 June 2006 - 3 December 2006.
BMA, "The Face of America: Modernist Art 1910-1950," 9 October - 29 December 1996.
BMA, "BMA Collects: African-American Art," 21 January - 18 March 1990.
Lent to White House Executive Offices, Washington, D.C., 19 April - 15 September 1965.
Lent to Office of the Secretary of Labor, Dept. of Labor, Washington, D.C., 3 August 1961 - 3 August 1962.
Lent to Afro-American Newspapers, 4 August 1960 - 1 August 1961.
BMA, "Baltimore Owned Paintings by Equity Artists," 9 July - 24 September 1950.
BMA, "African Art," 1 November - 24 November 1946.
San Diego, Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, "Paintings by Matisse, Tom Lewis, and Chester Hayes; Watercolor Paintings by Jacob Lawrence and Willing Howard," April 1946.
James Smalls, The Baltimore Museum of Art, "Henry Ossawa Tanner and his Influence in America," 7 June 2006 - 3 December 2006.
BMA, "The Face of America: Modernist Art 1910-1950," 9 October - 29 December 1996.
BMA, "BMA Collects: African-American Art," 21 January - 18 March 1990.
Lent to White House Executive Offices, Washington, D.C., 19 April - 15 September 1965.
Lent to Office of the Secretary of Labor, Dept. of Labor, Washington, D.C., 3 August 1961 - 3 August 1962.
Lent to Afro-American Newspapers, 4 August 1960 - 1 August 1961.
BMA, "Baltimore Owned Paintings by Equity Artists," 9 July - 24 September 1950.
BMA, "African Art," 1 November - 24 November 1946.
San Diego, Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, "Paintings by Matisse, Tom Lewis, and Chester Hayes; Watercolor Paintings by Jacob Lawrence and Willing Howard," April 1946.
"A Tribute to Poets Laureate of Maryland," 2 April 2000, booklet published by The State of Maryland.
Nebitt, Peter T. and Michelle DuBois, "Jacob Lawrence: Paintings, Drawings, and Murals (1935-1999) A Catalogue Raisonné," Seattle and London: University of Washington Press in association with Seattle: Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonné Project, 2000, p. 87, no. P45-03, pg. 87, ill.
Inscribed: lower right in blue paint: "Jacob Lawrence 1945 / USCG"
Markings: WM: handmade J. Whatman 1942 [--]
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