SCAD Museum of Art announces endowment to establish lecture series

By: Laura Duttenhaver

Published: Monday, March 3, 2008

The SCAD Museum of Art announces the gift of a $50,000 endowment grant from the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation to establish the SCAD Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Annual Lecture Series on African-American Art. The endowment will fund an annual lecture series, each year hosting a distinguished scholar of African-American art or an established African-American artist.  
 
The annual lecture series honors the memory of Jacob Lawrence, one of the country’s greatest African-American artists. Lawrence studied art through classes offered by the Works Progress Administration in New York, the Harlem Art Workshop, and the American Artists School. Lawrence quickly gained international renown as an important American artist through his work exploring social realism, regionalism and black history. In 1941, he became the first African-American artist whose work was acquired for the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Before he died in 2000, he earned many honors including the National Medal of Arts in 1990.
 
The college has a number of important pieces by Lawrence, recently donated as a part of the Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art. These include the original gouache paintings for the “Genesis Creation Sermon” series of 1989, which were later produced as prints.
 
The lecture series will serve as an important programming enrichment for the SCAD Center for African American Studies and the affiliated SCAD Museum of Art. The center is currently under development in a museum annex located in a National Historic Landmark structure on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The center’s mission is to promote the public knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of African-American culture, art and literature. The SCAD Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Annual Lecture Series on African-American Art will be free and open to the public, and the participation of local schools will be encouraged. The first lecture is planned for Fall 2008.


Duttenhaver is communications manager.