Cultural program for senior citizens held every other Wednesday afternoon from 1:30 – 3 pm. Light refreshments follow each program.

March 10
Hit Parade Songs!

March 24
Jacob Lawrence: The Glory of Expression

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A series featuring distinguished experts discussing topics germane to the Museum’s exhibitions and collections.

Saturday, March 13
Heidi Lange of D. C. Moore Gallery on the artist Jacob Lawrence
2-3 pm
Heidi Lange, Director of D. C. Moore Gallery, discusses Jacob Lawrence: Prints, 1963-2000, A Comprehensive Survey  and its origins. D. C. Moore handle’s Lawrence’s estate, and Lange has a unique perspective on what it means to represent an artist and manage his estate.

Saturday, April 10
Looking Up While Looking Down: Jacob Lawrence’s Depictions of African American Culture
2-3 pm
As the most successful black artist in a largely white art world in the decades during and after World War II, Jacob Lawrence was acutely aware of the politics of racial representation. Was it his responsibility to paint a positive image of black people to counter negative stereotypes, or should he picture, unapologetically, the often-ugly reality of life in the black ghetto? Lawrence chose to do both. Without question, his work bears the indelible imprint of the Harlem Renaissance, but it also reflects a gritty realism seen concurrently in literature, Richard Wright’s Native Son being one example. Peter Nesbett will discuss these two aspects of Lawrence’s work, talking about how Lawrence used these seemingly incompatible strategies for different audiences.

Peter Nesbett is the co-editor of the award-winning two-volume book The Complete Jacob Lawrence, and the author and editor of Jacob Lawrence: The Complete Prints: 1963-2000. From 1994 until 2000, he was the founding director of the Jacob Lawrence Project, a research effort to locate and document all the artist’s paintings and drawings. Today, he lives in Harlem where he and his wife, Shelly Bancroft, run a non-profit art gallery called Triple Candie.

Saturday, May 8
Dr. Patricia Hills on Jacob Lawrence
2-3 pm
Professor of American Art at Boston University, she draws from her recently published book, Painting Harlem Modern: The Art of Jacob Lawrence, published by the University of California Press. Book signing to follow.

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Delve more deeply into exhibition themes in this bi-weekly book discussion series.

Thursday—March 25*, April 8, April 22 and May 13
Rhythm and Style in the Harlem Renaissance Book Discussion Series
6:30 – 8 pm (*6:30-9)

The Harlem Renaissance addressed political debates and powerful emotions about black identity in America and the relationship between artistic achievements and political status. It was more than a literary movement, it was a revolution in style that embraced the popular and the fine arts. By breaking down boundaries between high culture and popular entertainment, this African American artistic scene, born in Jazz Age Harlem, presaged the convergence of genres celebrated in our times.

This reading series samples poetry, literature, belle-lettres, illustration, and theater from the 1920s, complementing the concurrent exhibition on Jacob Lawrence, whose taste was formed by encounters with these very artists and trends in his youth. The readings, designed for a general audience interested in the humanities, will spark a lively conversation about voice, the role of artistic communities, the tradition of small magazines, and the overlap between political and aesthetic urges. The role of African American style innovation in setting trends in the urban arts is an important theme, connecting the 1920s to the 21st century. Developed and facilitated by Professor Kathleen Hulser, Public Historian at the New-York Historical Society.

Pre-registration required. Participants to obtain their own copies of books for readings. Limited to 20 participants. 914.963.4550 x 352

March 25        Home to Harlem, by Claude McKay
April 8            Harlem Renaissance Reader, by David Levering Lewis
April 22         The Big Sea: An Autobiography, by Langston Hughes
May 13           Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

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