"Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle"

This American modernist's work hasn't been seen by that wide of an audience. It packs a real punch in terms of presenting an inclusive world history, spanning subjects from European colonization to World War I, that puts the experiences of people of color and women at the forefront. These incredibly vibrant, yet often dark, works are part of a series of 60 12-by-16-inch tempera paintings, which for the first time in more than a century are reunited here. Lawrence painted the series at the height of the Cold War and Joseph McCarthy's Red Scare and around the time of major Civil Rights actions, such as the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. I learned that Lawrence was watched by the FBI, too, because his work was seen as progressive and therefore as a "danger."