Schomburg Library is the first visual art I’ve seen depicting black and brown people poring over books, and it was love at first sight when I saw it during a visit to the Norton Museum of Art.
My favorite characters in Schomburg Library are two (presumably) men. Specifically, the one hunched over and hugging what looks like it could be an art book, and the one whose arms are so full of books it’s almost a miracle Lawrence didn’t paint one falling. The essence of these characters captures what I see as the love for text, for knowledge acqusition.
I don’t know much about the artist, Jacob Lawrence, only that he’s from an era I’m very familiar with from a literary perspective. Upon a quick Google search for “Jacob Lawrence+library”, I found Lawrence has actually painted a number of works depicting fellow melanated kin enjoying the fruits of public libraries.
According to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Schomburg Library (now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black culture, and previously 135th Street library) “played a critical role in Lawrence’s artistic development, offering him a place where he could learn about the lives of civil rights leaders and abolitionists…all of whom became subjects of his work.” Sound familiar?
Where I’m Heading…
Like Lawrence, I am in so many ways a self-taught artist. College opened many exciting doors for me and after graduating, I dove head-first into the art world, focusing largely on fiction and film.
Serendipitous connection after serendipitous connection, I found myself traveling all over the world through the minds of great and admirable thinkers. I spent time in Senegal with Ousmane Sembène, Lebanon with Etel Adnan, the UK with Stella Dadzie, and Barbados with Paule Marshall.
But, unlike Lawrence, I am not a public library type. I, for some odd reason, am more of a personal library type. Images abound of a cozy old Florida home with custom-built bookcases teeming with great works of popular and niche flavors. For now, though, I must settle with stacks on the floor, a single shelf in a small closet, and the dark reserves of a generations-old cabinet on wheels.
No matter the state of my own library, I know the feeling that comes from being surrounded by books. There is a sense of wonder and possibility. There is a sense of ability. If Alice Walker, Ralph Ellison, Gloria Naylor, and Toni Cade Bambara (just to name a few of my literary heroes) could sit down to create, so can I.