The Shoemaker 22"x 30" gouache and watercolor on paper, 1945Jacob Lawrence, 1917 - 2000, lived at the Ponce De Leon Hotel in 1944 . The hotel had been commandeered by the U.S. Coast Guard for wartime service. Lawrence was a Steward's Mate, the only rank permitted to African Americans. He had already exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York. His Migration of the Negro series had a heavily attended national tour the year before his service. Read More Art historian Robert Wilson Torchia notes that there is no evidence that Lawrence ever visited the St. Augustine Arts Club. It would have been unlikely given the racial attitudes that prevailed in those times. This is 20 years before blacks could order a Coke at Woolworth's or stay in an integrated hotel. Jacob Lawrence and John James Audubon are arguably the most celebrated painters to have ever spent time in St. Augustine.
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