Studying the past

All 60 of the tempera paintings in Jacob Lawrence’s  Migration Series were on display at the Seattle Art Museum… words and pictures of the mass exodus of African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North in the decades after the first World War.  Jacob Lawence’s parents had migrated from the south to NJ just before Jacob was born  —he was one of the first African American artists to be represented by a major gallery in NY and can be seen in many museum collections …This series he painted as a young man in 1940-41.  He came to the UW in 1971 as a painting professor and I had the privilege in the late 70s to have him as a dear teacher.  ( I’m sure I came to love these flat shapes from him).    Isabel Wilkerson who wrote the wonderful “The Warmth of Other Suns”  in 2010 about the same decades of migration from the South, will talk here later in conjunction with this exhibit.       (My  book club read this book in this blip  )

Still winter break from school. The girls Mom was at work and the Dad needed to work so we took them to the museum.   They were not overly thrilled to do so, but they got into it, especially with Paul Allen’s landscape show where we all picked our favorites ..  Fiona liked the 2 about Vesuvius volcano erupting..lots of sparks ...Tatum,  Monet’s waterlilies and a contemporary April Gornik (in the extra)  ..altho it was fun for her to see the many paintings of Venice which she could recognise, having been there.  (my favorite HERE) 
We spent an hour and then came home for milkshakes, popcorn and a movie, High School Musical..

Putting some extras.. a surreal Yves Tanguey landscape, (H's favorite??) and a pretty big hit- using the computers to find out more about the paintings they liked … Yep ..of course.. electonics!

Posting this for the Weekly blip challenge for “History”  which is about "studying  the past. "