Besides his name sounding like some boring banker, Jacob was born in 1917 and croaked it 11 years ago in 2000. He describes himself as having a style of "dynamic cubism." However, I would refer to it more as "dynamic boring-ism."
His self portrait, featured right below here, looks more like the work of someone who can't seem to figure out depth or colors.
Jacob Lawrence was known (though I have not figured out how he ever became famous) for portraying the life and struggle of African Americans. One thing I actually like about this dude is that he used multiple paintings to tell a story. His most famous story series is "Migration of the Negro" which is comprised of 60 panels. Ironically, people must have felt uncomfortable using the given title, so it is now called "The Migration Series" which sounds tons more politically correct.
In 2007, the white house was spruced up with one of Lawrence's paintings. It was called "The builders" and was painted in 1947. A staggering 2.5 million dollars was spent on the painting - don't worry, I took the time to look up whether or not it was tax dollars; it wasn't.
Very good job on finding the biography on Mr. Lawrence, but I disagree with your assessment of his work. Although the style of each piece is very simplistic and "junior-highish," they still evoke the emotions related to the subject matter. The painting done at the White House seems to be kind of a sight of relief in comparison to his earlier pieces. There are lots of bright colors, and the people are happily working together. There are no streaks of red, or ominous blocks of black. The color is somewhat evenly distributed, which gives a sense of unity in the painting for the workers.
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