141. The Migration of the Negro. Panel no. 49. Jacob Lawrence, 1940-1941 CE Casein tempera on hardboard.

• Form
  • The work illustrates the collective African-American experience; therefore, there is little individuality in the figures
  • Forms hover in larger spaces
  • Angularity of forms
  • Tilted tabletops show the surface of the table
  • Flat, simple shapes
  • Unmodulated colors
  • Collective unity achieved by painting one color across many panels before going on to the next door; overall color unity in the series unites each painting
• Content
  • This scene involves a public restaurant in the North; segregation emphasized by the yellow poles that zigzag down the center
  • Whites appear haughty and self-engrossed
  • African-Americans appear faceless; forms reveal their bodies and personalities
• Context
  • One of a series of 60 paintings that depicts the migration of African-Americans from the rural South to the urban North and WWI
  • Negroes escaping the economic privation of the South
  • Narrative painting in an era of increased abstraction
  • Cinematic movement of views of panels: some horizontal and others vertical
  • Influenced by the Italian masters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; used tempera paint
  • The Phillps Collections in Washington, DC., and the Museum of Modern Art in New York bought the collection and it was split. Phillips took the odd-numbered paintings; the Museum of Modern Art has the even-numbered ones.