WASHINGTON — In recognition of the Jan. 16 holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday and February's role as "Black History Month," major cultural institutions throughout the country are turning to African-American themes in profound and stimulating ways.
The actual Emancipation Proclamation, probably the single most important and symbolic document in African-American history, will be on display at the National Archives (Constitution Avenue between and 7th and 9th Streets Northwest, Washington, D.C.; 202-501-5000) for one week only-Jan. 12-19.
Signed by President Abraham Lincoln on Jan. 1, 1863, the proclamation outlawed slavery only in those states and territories still in rebellion against the U.S. government, but that covered nearly all slave-holding states except the border states that had remained loyal. Lincoln's action signaled the doom of slavery and the secessionist cause, a fate then sealed for good later that year with Gen. Robert E. Lee's disastrous defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg.
The proclamation's age and frailty limit its exposure. The earliest known hand-written draft of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (there were five versions) will be on view at the archives as well at the same time.
`Free Within Ourselves'
Nearby, at the National Museum of American Art (8th and G Streets Northwest; 202-357-2700), is a large-scale exhibition embracing what amounts to the entire history of African-American art-covering the nearly two centuries from 1805 to last year. Called "Free Within Ourselves," after a line by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, the show has paintings, drawings, photography and sculpture by nearly 100 artists.
Visitors will find a rich and varied cultural creativity. The show covers everything from the works of self-taught black painters of the early 19th Century to such acclaimed masters as Henry Ossawa Tanner to the Depression-era's William H. Johnston to such contemporary figures as Melvin Edwards and his 1993 welded-steel sculpture "Tambo."
Tanner's 1914 "Fisherman at Sea," one of 170 works in the show, is among the great maritime paintings ever produced by American artists, and Elizabeth Catlett's 1970 linoleum cut "Sharecropper" is a picture worth many thousands of words. The exhibition closes Feb. 26.
Works of Jacob Lawrence
New York's Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art are each holding exhibitions of the highly evocative and historically important works of Jacob Lawrence, one of the most significant African-American painters of this century.
On view at MOMA (11 W. 53rd St. between 5th and 6th Avenues; 212-708-9480), beginning Jan. 12, will be Lawrence's epochal "Migration Series," 60 panels illustrating, illuminating and evoking the extraordinary migration of millions of American blacks from the impoverished rural south to the industrialized north during and immediately after World War I.
With so many American men under arms, labor was at a premium in both regions, and this massive exodus-one of the greatest in history-caused painful dislocations for all concerned. Though Lawrence used a flat, almost primitive style, he visually told this wrenching story with gripping and poignant verisimilitude, making the viewer share the suffering, strain and bewilderment of his historical subjects in simple but powerful ways.
As MOMA observed: " `The Migration Series' is marked by a distinctive style; abstracted, expressive figures with masklike faces act out causes and consequences in stagelike spaces."
Completed years after the fact on the eve of World War II, the series was reproduced in part in Fortune Magazine and exhibited to great acclaim and popularity in New York. This latest exhibition was organized by Washington's Phillips Collection and closes at MOMA on April 11.
From Jan. 11 to March 24, The Whitney Museum's Philip Morris branch (120 Park Ave.; 212-878-2550) is showing "Jacob Lawrence: The War Series." A natural sequel to the earlier project, it relates Lawrence's 1943-1945 experiences as a black serviceman in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II. Illustrative of the burdens, privations and contributions of all African-Americans in the military during that global conflict, the 14 paintings in this series were completed in 1946 and 1947.
Blessed with a tolerant commanding officer, Lawrence had been allowed to pursue his painting while on active duty during the war, producing 48 completed works on military subjects, but all of these earlier pieces disappeared, leaving only the 14 for posterity.
Among the highlights of this show are the 1946 painting "The Letter," depicting a forlorn, only partially visible military officer reading one apparently from home; and the 1947 "Beachhead," in which soldiers run before the looming figure of a grenade thrower with outstretched arms.