Race Relations

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.