Arguably one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century, Jacob Lawrence became known for his bold, graphic social realist paintings that depicted the daily life and struggles of African Americans. Lawrence rose to prominence in the New York City art community after completing his most recognized body of work, The Migration Series, a piece that made him the first African American artist to be represented by a major New York gallery. Lawrence referred to his style his style as “dynamic cubism” and painted his diverse subjects in a pseudo-representational style with bright yet incongruous colors in flat, fragmented forms and space as seen in Supermarket Flora. “My pictures express my life and experience. I paint the things I know about and the things I have experienced,” Lawrence said.
