WHEN AMERICAN STORIES FIND EUROPEAN EYES: JACOB LAWRENCE IN THE NETHERLANDS
- Leilani Lewis
- Oct 23
- 7 min read
Updated: Oct 24
by Leilani Lewis
How personal connections, institutional courage, and artistic legacy converged to bring African American modernism to Europe.
It took more than two decades after his death, but Jacob Lawrence has finally arrived in Europe.
The first major European exhibition of Black American modernist Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) recently opened at Kunsthal KAdé in the Netherlands. 70 original paintings, 25 drawings, and 75 prints trace Lawrence's six-decade career in Jacob Lawrence | African American Modernist. It's a historic moment that opens new doors for understanding the full story of American art.
Lawrence painted American history like no one before him. Working in vivid egg tempera (a paint made from colored pigments and egg yolk) or gouache, both water mediums, on small hardboard panels, he told stories of the Great Migration, the battles for freedom, and the dignity of everyday Black life through bold colors and angular figures. When he created his masterwork (the 60-panel Migration Series) in 1941, he was just 23 years old. The series made him one of the most celebrated Black artists of his generation.
"We think of modernism as European," says Robbert Roos, the museum's founder and director, who curated the exhibition. Modernist painting emerged in Europe with artists such as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Paul Cézanne, among others, just before the turn of the 20th century. "At least that's the idea in Europe," Roos continues, "that it's a European invention. It originated in Paris, and that's the real thing."
But modernism developed its own powerful vocabulary in America, particularly through artists like Lawrence, who told stories from across American life. Roos first saw Lawrence's Migration Series in the 1990s and never forgot it. "It captivated me," he recalls. "His direct approach, his visual language, it speaks to you."
"But the breakthrough came through personal connections. American collectors Walter and Linda Evans, stewards of the Lawrence Foundation (Linda is the current president of the foundation; Walter is president emeritus), connected Roos to the network of institutions and scholars who safeguard Lawrence's legacy.
Among those connections was Seattle artist Barbara Earl Thomas, who became Lawrence's student shortly after he arrived to teach at the University of Washington in 1971. The relationship developed into a 30-year enduring friendship that lasted until the deaths of Jacob and his wife, American artist Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence. Roos asked if Thomas would create four new works honoring her mentor, which are now intricate cut-paper portraits anchoring the heart of the exhibition.
Her portraits, an homage, depict: Jacob as a young painter, Jacob and wife Gwendolyn in NYC, their first home, before coming to Seattle, Jacob in the Northwest landscape, and his years as an educator at the University of Washington.
"I'm pleased that my work holds up, that it's strong and it holds its own space," Thomas says, her voice carrying quiet pride. "It's not Jacob Lawrence, it's Barbara Thomas, and it's its own thing. But it's relating to Jacob and my thirty-year connection with both him and Gwen."
For Roos, Thomas solved a puzzle. He was hoping to show Lawrence's impact as an educator. "Through Barbara, I could represent his teaching skills, which is quite an abstract thing. How do you visualize teaching? I could visualize it through Barbara’s distinctive work."
Assembling the exhibition meant navigating institutional policies, shipping logistics, and conservation restrictions. Roos attempted to secure twice as many works as ultimately appeared in the exhibit. Some institutions couldn't spare major pieces of Lawrence's work. Other institutions cap loans at three per venue.
Because of this, what is currently exhibited in Amersfoort will never exist again. Not in this configuration. Not with these specific pieces.
Still, the exhibition delivers: In four Migration Series panels, Lawrence shows Black families leaving the South to build new lives in the North, one train ride and one dream at a time. The Struggle Series looks at America's early years (from the Revolution through World War II) through the eyes of ordinary people. The Builder paintings, filled with rich jewel-toned colors (deep, gem-like reds, blues, and greens), honor the pride and skill of people who work with their hands. A large hall of silkscreen prints includes the Toussaint L'Ouverture series, the Genesis series, the Harriet Tubman series, and more.
Even Thomas was surprised by the scale. "I didn't anticipate that the show would be so expansive."
Dutch audiences are discovering both Lawrence and the rich context of his subjects: The Harlem Renaissance, the story of John Brown, and the Great Migration itself.
Poster Design … Whitney Exhibition (1974) by Jacob Lawrence, credit: Courtesy Cantor Arts Center; Jacob Lawrence by Barbara Earl Thomas, credit Leilani Lewis, Tool Man, 1978 by Jacob Lawrence, from the collection Bill and Holly Marklyn, Seattle.
The exhibition includes extensive wall text, timelines, and archival materials. Lawrence's duffel bag from his service in the U.S. Coast Guard (1943-1945) sits beside wartime drawings he created while documenting life aboard troop transport ships. His scrapbooks document the Harlem community where he came of age. Photographs by well-known photographers Gordon Parks and Carl Van Vechten capture crystal-clear images of Lawrence throughout his life.
Thomas observes Dutch audiences engaging intensely. "There's a literary tradition here where people are very used to reading and looking, reading and looking," she notes, watching visitors move between text and art with evident curiosity.
Roos's vision addresses the art world's dismissal of Lawrence's Seattle period. "To many authors, students, and scholars, the art of Jacob Lawrence stops at the end of the 60s. As if he didn't do anything anymore." However, Lawrence's Seattle years (1971-2000) produced sustained explorations. The Builders series, celebrating construction workers, carpenters, and cabinetmakers, occupied him for three decades. These later works, featuring deep browns, ochres, and teals alongside primary colors, show his continued innovation and unwavering commitment to depicting working-class Black life with dignity.
The exhibition also elevates Lawrence's silkscreen prints, often dismissed as secondary. "Even in the 30s, he already worked with the thought process of a printmaker," Roos explains, noting how Lawrence built paintings in flat color layers like printing screens.
Opening the exhibition started with remarks from Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and creator of the 1619 Project (a landmark work examining how slavery shaped American history), who spoke at the dual opening of Lawrence's show and Nina Chanel Abney's concurrent exhibition. The pairing of these two exhibitions demonstrates the growing engagement of European institutions with the full breadth of American art and history.
For Thomas, the moment carries profound weight. "I find it mystical and magical that Jacob, who's been gone 25 years, is still supporting me in a certain way and approving my presence in an art world that is now in Europe. I wouldn't be here, at this moment, were it not for him, and it takes nothing away from me and my efforts. Sometimes you need that person who has primacy to be how you move through the world, and Jacob, in many cases, has been that for me."
Asked how Lawrence would respond to this recognition, Thomas doesn't hesitate. "It's a natural outcome of all the work they did. He'd smile and be gracious and think it's as it should be."
Thomas sees the exhibition as part of a larger moment for Black American artists in Europe. Kerry James Marshall has a major show running at the Royal Academy in London. Nina Chanel Abney presented a major show at Galerie Perrotin in Paris. Mickalene Thomas has a major survey exhibition on view at Les Abattoirs in Toulouse, France. The convergence feels both exhilarating and urgent.
"What seems most urgent is that we do not lose the momentum of the opportunities," Thomas emphasizes, leaning forward. "Now that this work is out, we make sure its presence is noted so that people, whether in Paris or Germany or England, know.”
As for whether showing Lawrence in the Netherlands shifts meaning, Thomas is philosophical. "How does looking at Vermeer in the US shift its meaning?" She asks. "It makes you learn about something you don't already know."
Thomas looks ahead with anticipation, her face brightening. "I am looking forward to the unforeseen consequences and opportunities that we can't know yet."
The legacy continues. The story expands. And now, Europe is listening.
Jacob Lawrence | African American Modernist runs through January 4, 2026, at Kunsthal KAdé in Amersfoort, Netherlands.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) was one of the most celebrated American painters of the 20th century, known for dynamic narrative paintings depicting African American history and contemporary life. He created serialized visual stories about the Great Migration, civil rights, builders and laborers, and everyday life in the Black community. His 60-panel Migration Series (1940-41), created at the age of 23, is considered a masterwork of American modernism, jointly owned by the MoMA and the Whitney Museum. He taught at the University of Washington from 1971 to 1986, profoundly influencing the Pacific Northwest arts community.
Barbara Earl Thomas is a Seattle-based visual artist with numerous national exhibitions to her credit and an active art-making career spanning more than 30 years. A skilled painter who now builds tension-filled narratives through papercuts and prints, she places silhouetted figures in social and political landscapes, drawing from mythology and history to create a contemporary visual narrative that challenges the stories we tell as Americans about who we are. Thomas’s works are included in collections worldwide. Thomas is a graduate of the School of Art at the University of Washington, where she received her Master of Arts degree in 1977. She counts herself most fortunate to have had mentorship with Michael Spafford and Jacob Lawrence, who have both influenced her work. She will tell you that these two men were not only supportive but crucial friends in her life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leilani Lewis is a Seattle-based writer and essayist. She is also an award winning community-rooted leader, and organizational consultant who dedicates her time helping others build and sustain their vision. Her work dives into beauty, resistance, and radical mischief, always chasing truth and sparking connection.
[^1]: Before modernism, most European painting and sculpture aimed to look realistic, like a photograph. Think of old portraits where you can see every detail of someone's face and clothing, or landscape paintings that show nature exactly as it appears. Modernism (roughly late 1800s through mid-1900s) broke those rules. Artists began using flat shapes instead of realistic depth, bold and unexpected colors (a face might be blue or green), and distorted or simplified forms. A modernist portrait might show someone's face broken into geometric angles or use just a few flat colors to suggest a person rather than carefully painting every feature. Modernist painters started painting how the world felt, rather than how it looked. European artists are often credited with inventing this approach. Still, American artists like Lawrence developed their own powerful modernist style, using these bold visual techniques to tell stories about American life and history.
Kunsthal is Dutch for "art hall," a term used for contemporary art spaces and galleries throughout the Netherlands.
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