Builders #1, 1972 (w/c, gouache & graphite)

A window within a window, Jacob Lawrence's Builders #1 presents a hopeful allegory of African-American life. A carpenter sits at a workbench surrounded by a fantastic array of tools and fasteners. The mountains behind him mirror his strength. This is the first expression of a theme that Lawrence would return to for the rest of his career. His builders serve as metaphorical figures, simultaneously evoking artistic creation and social struggle. Like the people who won the hard-fought battles of the civil rights struggle, the craftsman stands for the potential of all African-Americans. The moment portrayed here, however, is not an act of construction but of preparation, as the builder sits sharpening a chisel. Wood as a building material is almost completely absent. He is alone and reflective, weighing the projects ahead. Lawrence is known for his bold use of flat planes of color, a technique he first developed as a member of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930s. In this work, he softened his vigorous application of gouache, an opaque water-based paint, with transparent watercolor.