In 1937, Lawrence began a series of ten narratives based on African American life and heroes. In 1941, Lawrence joined the roster of artists at Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery, a leading gallery specializing in American art and gained widespread recognition in 1944 when the Museum of Modern Art (New York) organized the first traveling exhibition of his "Migration" series. The theme of migration continued to be an important subject for Lawrence, but he also represented African Americans at work and play, and at home and abroad. Lawrence taught at various schools and colleges and became a professor of art at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1971; he retired in 1986.
In 2003, the Phillips Collection (Washington, D. C.) organized a traveling retrospective show. With voluminous exhibitions to his credit, Lawrence's work is found in many private and almost two hundred museum collections. In 2000, The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation was established. In 2000, a catalogue raisonne, "The Complete Jacob Lawrence," was published documenting over 900 of Jacob Lawrence's paintings, drawings, and murals.
He trained under Charles Alston at the Harlem Art Workshops in the 1930s. Between 1938 and 1940, he was employed as an easel painter for the WPA.
