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Jacob Lawrence's, "No. 2, Main Control Panel, Nerve Center of Ship" depicts life aboard the USS Sea Cloud in 1944. Coast Guard photo
Jacob Lawrence (right) and Lt. Carlton Skinner, commanding officer of the Sea Cloud, are shown just before the ship's decommissioning in 1944. Coast Guard photo
Lawrence's "The Builder" was purchased by the White House Historical Association for $2.5 million. It is displayed in the Green Room on the State Floor of the White House. Photo courtesy of the White House Historical Association
For nearly 50 years, Jacob Lawrence was widely regarded as America's most important black artist. His work is known throughout the world for its depiction of the black American experience form the Civil War to the civil rights movement and beyond. Coast Guard photo
"Landing Craft," is another work from Lawrence's time aboard the Sea Cloud. Coast Guard photo
The Art of History:
Jacob Lawrence Paints the Coast Guard
BY PA2 JOHN MILLER, 5th District
Jacob Lawrence's lifework was the painting of the narrative of African-American history: Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, the northern exodus known as the Great Migration, the vibrant community of early twentieth-century Harlem, N.Y., and countless others.
Lawrence's own life imitated his art when he made history in 1944 as part of the first racially integrated afloat unit in the military, the USS Sea Cloud, a Coast Guard weather patrol ship. Lawrence described his time there as "the best democracy I have ever known."
He was born in Atlantic City, N.J., in 1917 to parents who themselves had left the South. After a childhood partially spent in foster homes, Lawrence was re-united with his mother in Harlem in 1930. Here African-American art was flourishing in the city as part of the black cultural revival known as the Harlem Renaissance. All of this enthused the budding artist.
The movement's celebration of African-American history inspired Lawrence to use his racial heritage as subject matter, and the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Harlem encouraged his use of expressive techniques associated with early twentieth-century modernism. Lawrence favored bold colors, geometric patterns and abstract representations of events in black history as well as his experiences of the Harlem streets.
His talents and themes attracted the attention of wealthy white patrons, and the showing of his 26-panel "The Migration of the Negro" in New York's Downtown Gallery marked the first time a black artist crossed the mainstream art scene's color barrier. However, the show's opening date was itself portentous: December 9, 1941, just two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Answering the call to duty, Lawrence entered the Coast Guard in October 1943. After attending basic training in Curtis Bay, Md., Lawrence was initially assigned to St. Augustine, Fla. The painter was now a steward's mate, responsible for serving meals at training facility for white officers. However, "The Migration of the Negro" had brought Lawrence national renown, and the base's commanding officer, Capt. J. S. Rosenthal, offered space in his home so that his artistic steward could continue painting.
Lawrence's next connection to African-American history began in 1944, when he was assigned to the Sea Cloud. A year earlier, its white commanding officer, then-Lt. Carlton Skinner, desegregated the vessel, including opening all occupational specialties to the ship's African-American crewmembers. Prior to this, black Coast Guardsmen were limited to working as stewards and did not berth with whites. Skinner removed these barriers, and the harmony among the crew and the ship's superior performance evaluations demonstrated to the military that integration was not only possible, it was also desirable.
"I think everyone was really relieved that integration had finally come," Lawrence told author Mike Tidwell. "Segregation was such a burden to everyone, really. We were like a family on that ship."
On board the Sea Cloud, Lawrence's reputation again preceded him. Skinner authorized ship’s funds to pay for art supplies and allowed Lawrence to spend a large amount of time with his work. The rest of Lawrence's shipmates remember him as very congenial, but also as someone who took this newly official duty very seriously.
"He was just one of the crew," says retired Master Chief Mate Robert Hammond, another member of the African-American crew of the Sea Cloud, "but he would go to the engine room, go to the bridge, or be on deck with his sketch pad, drawing every day."
Lawrence's paintings there reflect this interest in the crew at work. Similar to his pre-War images, he captured Coast Guardsmen doing routine things in remarkable contexts. "A man may never see combat, but he can be a very important person," the painter explained. Consequently, he illustrated the stoic dignity of labor and maintenance in paintings like "Chipping the Mast" and "Painting the Bilge.” Likewise, Lawrence depicted the elegant symmetry of technological pattern and form in the Sea Cloud’s displays, including "No. 2, Main Control Panel, Nerve Center of Ship."
More than forty of these paintings were displayed as part of a solo exhibit at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in 1944, a first for not only a Coast Guardsman in uniform, but for an African-American as well. The exhibit was well received by the wartime public. Art Digest commented on how Lawrence's abstracts were "handsome in their simplified yet somehow sophisticated design." Unfortunately, though, these paintings are also the subject of an art world mystery, if not tragedy. The canvasses were disbursed to Coast Guard units without documentation or were taken by service members as souvenirs and the whereabouts of only a few are known today.
After the Sea Cloud was decommissioned in November 1944, Lawrence was re-united with his previous commanding officer, Capt. Rosenthal, at his new command, the troop transport ship USS General Wilds P. Richardson. However, now Lawrence was a public relations petty officer 3rd class and the ship's artist. He was free to devote all his time to drawing.
Lawrence was discharged from the service in December 1945, but with the help of a Guggenheim fellowship, began work the next year on another group of images about his wartime experiences. Simply called "War," the 14-painting series represents the overlooked but meaningful aspects of life during at war.
The series is now part of the permanent collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
In a long life spent witnessing and documenting history, Lawrence recalled his Coast Guard service as one of its highlights. “[It was] a wonderful experience . . . one of the peak experiences in my life," he told Charles Hollingsworth fifty years later. Cancer ended that talented life in June 2000. Nevertheless, Lawrence's illustrations live on as an important piece of American history.
