Women’s Jail, Nigeria

about Women’s Jail, Nigeria

As one of the first Black artists in America to gain monetary support (both from private and public funds), American Modern artist Jacob Lawrence made his practice one that shone a spotlight on global Black histories.

In 1962 and 1964, he took trips to visit the newly independent nation of Nigeria, where he sojourned with the artists of the journal "Black Orpheus" and of the Mbari Artists and Writers Club. The impact of these trips on his life and practice was evident; his style quickly began to echo the themes and aesthetics of West Africa. In his own words, Lawrence said he went there intending to "steep myself in Nigerian culture so that my paintings, if I’m fortunate, might show the influence of the great African artistic tradition." In this original painting, dated 1967, Lawrence looks back on his time in Nigeria, when he was under constant surveillance and threat by the US government. Fearful of Communism, the US often flip-flopped on how its citizens were to behave while abroad, if they were allowed to go at all. The scene depicted here shows a group of women prisoners working at various stages of producing clothes. Whether they are making them for themselves or for the prison to sell for profit is unknown. Although the captured moment seems vibrant, it is marred by the presence of rats and the prison guard. Perhaps when composing this scene, Lawrence was reflecting on its parallels to his own time in Nigeria, when the law (US gov) was watching him constantly, and many moments of creation were tainted with an association that art was being made for a purpose beyond himself, in his case to spread the gospel of Capitalism on behalf of the US.