Collection 1880s–1940s

520

Jacob Lawrence and Christopher Cozier

Ongoing

MoMA

Christopher Cozier. Tropical Night. 2006-14. One of 268 sheets with acrylic, ink, colored ink, pencil, and colored pencil on paper, some with stamped ink, stencil, solvent transfer, and cut-and-pasted colored and painted paper, 9 × 7" (22.9 × 17.8 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Latin American and Caribbean Fund and Fund for the Twenty-First Century. © Christopher Cozier. Courtesy of Christopher Cozier
  • MoMA, Floor 5, 520 The Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Galleries

For several decades beginning during World War I, millions of Black Americans left the Southern United States for the North, Midwest, and West—a mass exodus known as the Great Migration. A child of migrants, painter Jacob Lawrence grew up in Harlem, where he set out from an early age to make art that addressed Black histories. “This is my genre . . . the happiness, tragedies, and the sorrows of mankind,” Lawrence stated. In 1940 he embarked on making the Migration Series.

Artist Christopher Cozier’s own migration story began in 1983, when he left Trinidad and Tobago to study in the United States, where he was embraced by New York’s creative community. In 1988 he returned to his home country to live and work, but continued to travel, navigating both the international art world and stereotypes and myths of and from the Caribbean. Cozier’s experiences of different places inform Tropical Night (2006–14), which, like Lawrence’s work, unfolds across multiple compositions. It does not offer a set narrative, but encourages us to create our own.

Organized by Esther Adler, Curator, with Rachel Remick, Curatorial Assistant.

136 works online

Support for the exhibition is provided by the Annual Exhibition Fund. Leadership contributions to the Annual Exhibition Fund, in support of the Museum’s collection and collection exhibitions, are generously provided by Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine G. Farley, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, the Sandra and Tony Tamer Exhibition Fund, the Kate W. Cassidy Foundation, Alice and Tom Tisch, the Marella and Giovanni Agnelli Fund for Exhibitions, The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Eva and Glenn Dubin, Mimi Haas, The David Rockefeller Council, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz, Kenneth C. Griffin, The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis, and Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder. Major funding is provided by The Sundheim Family Foundation.

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