?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 25,000
JACOB LAWRENCE (1917 - 2000) Memories of Nigeria.
Colored crayons and pencil on cream wove paper, 1965. 273x381 mm; 10 3/4x15 inches. Signed and dated in crayon, lower left. Not in Nesbett/DuBois.
With a fragment of an old mat which is signed, dated and titled in pencil.
Provenance: private collection, New York.
This colorful drawing of a busy market scene by Jacob Lawrence is a scarce example of his 1960s work on paper in colored crayons, and an African subject. Jacob Lawrence did a small series of crayon drawings in Nigeria during his trip there in 1964 - only four are recorded in his catalogue raisonné.
A welcome break from the tension of the heightening Civil Rights movement, Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence planned and made an eight month long trip to Nigeria, from April to November in 1964, after selling their Brooklyn coop apartment. Lawrence focused on market scenes there working in tempera and drawing; they both exhibited their art work in Lagos. Upon their return that fall, the Lawrences moved to Boston for his new visting artist's position at Brandeis University. Nesbett/DuBois pp. 182-84.
