Jacob Lawrence

“I would describe my work as expressionist. The expressionist point of view is stressing your own feelings about something.”

“I try to get a sense of the city, the people, the movement, the colors.”

“I am not a politician. I'm an artist, and I'm a craftsman.”

“When the subject is strong, <strong class="highlight">simplicitystrong> is the only way to treat it.”

“If I have achieved anything, it is because I have not been embarrassed to protect the things I believe in.”

“I don't think about style. I just do the work.”

“I've always been interested in history, but they never taught Negro history in the public schools... I don't see how a history of the United States can be written honestly without including the Negro.”

“For me, a painting is a statement. I may not be able to speak the word, but I can make a statement in a painting.”

“All artists are members of the same family.”

“In order to add to our art, we must have a broader understanding of the world.”

“We have a response to color. It's built into our nervous systems.”

“My belief is that it is most important for an artist to develop an approach and philosophy about life - if he has developed this philosophy, he does not put paint on canvas, he puts himself on canvas.”

“This is my genre...the happiness, the joy, the great suffering, the sorrows of my people. I want to paint it. I am the man.”