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Three people with dark brown skin lie on a marigold-orange ground that extends toward a high horizon line in this stylized, vertical painting. An ant and two other bugs cling to a screen of tall, moss-green, flame-shaped leaves that span the width of the composition and separate us from the people. Beyond the leaves, the large soles and rounded toes of the woman’s feet are almost half the height of the painting. She holds a rifle against her body, which is enclosed in a mostly round, periwinkle-blue shape with narrow strips of cranberry-red around the top, left, and bottom. Her head is tilted sharply to our left, her ear near her shoulder so her face points upward in profile. Her nose and mouth are created with thin strokes of golden yellow. Her closed eyes are marked with slivers of white, and a raspberry-pink scarf covers her hair. A slender green stem with pointed leaves rises at an angle next to her head. Beyond her, a man lies with his body curled, so his body curves toward us with his head to our right. He wears only black, shin-length pants. His bald head rests on crossed arms, and his ankles are also crossed. His closed eyes are painted with white and his features outlined in gold, like the woman. Just behind him, a woman curls around an object held in one large hand. Fields of pink and blue, in the same shades as the other woman, read as a blue cap and skirt, and a pink wrap or blanket. A round, brown shape within an off-white field appears to be a baby cradled close to her head. One tall, blade-like leaf grows up behind her shoulders. The orange ground comes to a point to our left of center and dips down to our right. The area beneath the straight horizon line is filled in with midnight blue, nearly black. Above, a sapphire-blue band fills the top quarter of the composition. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “Jacob Lawrence 67.”

Jacob Lawrence

Daybreak - A Time to Rest, 1967

Not on View

Medium

tempera on hardboard

Dimensions

overall: 76.2 x 61 cm (30 x 24 in.)

framed: 92.4 x 76.8 cm (36 3/8 x 30 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Anonymous Gift

Accession Number

1973.8.1

Artists / Makers

Jacob Lawrence (artist) American, 1917 - 2000

Image Use

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Inscription

lower right: Jacob Lawrence 67

Provenance

(Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York); gift 1973 by an anonymous collector to NGA.

Associated Names

Dintenfass, Inc., Terry

Exhibition History

1974: New Accessions, USA, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1974

1981: Extended loan for use by the Ambassador, U.S. Embassy residence, Bonn, West Germany, 1981-1985.

1986: Jacob Lawrence American Painter, Seattle Art Museum; Oakland Museum; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Dallas Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum, 1986-1987, no. 113, repro.

2001: Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence, Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Mus. of American Art, New York; Detroit Inst. of Arts; High Mus. of Art, Atlanta; Mus. of Fine Arts, Houston; Seattle Art Mus., 2001-2003, no. 78, repro.

2009: Harlem Renaissance, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 2009, no. 46, repro.

Bibliography

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 193, repro.

1980: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: no. 60, color repro.

1988: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 186, no. 70, color repro.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 225, repro.

1997: Matsumoto, Fumihisa. Daybreak - A Time to Rest: Jacob Lawrence's Struggle. Japan, 1997: 49, repro.

2000: Nesbett, Peter T., and Michelle DuBois. Jacob Lawrence: Paintings, Drawings, and Murals (1935-1999), A Catalogue Raisonné. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000, pp. 168-169, no. P67-07.

2000: Nesbett, Peter T., and Michelle DuBois. Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jabob Lawrence. Seattle and London, 2000: 260, 267.