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Street Scene - Restaurant

by Jacob Lawrence

Lawrence painted Street Scene when he was only nineteen years old, his brightly colored style, marked by flat shapes and figures, already noticeable. 

Lawrence’s painting humorously addresses a controversial issue of the time: sexual relations between blacks and whites. 

The white patron, glancing over his shoulder, looks markedly nervous, while the prostitute only laughs and beckons him closer.  The scene is continued in Lawrence’s 1937 painting, Interior Scene. 

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Jacob Lawrence - Street Scene

Jacob Lawrence, Street Scene – Restaurant, 1936/38.  Tempera on paper, 26 ½ x 35 in.

Museum Purchase, Derby Fund, from the Philip J. and Suzanne Schiller Collection of American Social Commentary Art 1930-1970

Within Race Relations...
George Biddle Adolf Dehn Jacob Lawrence Jacob Lawrence Julius T. Bloch George Tooker

Race Relations Anti-Semitism Lynching
Spirituality Civil Rights
Romare Bearden
George Biddle
Julius T. Bloch
Adolf Dehn
Joseph Delaney
Boris Gorelick
Robert Gwathmey
Joe Jones
Jacob Lawrence
Louis Lozowick
Elijah Pierce
Ben Shahn
George Tooker
James Turnbull


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