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Lot Essay
Occupational Therapy No. 1 is a poignant scene taken from Jacob Lawrence's experiences in Hillside Hospital, a leading mental health facility in New York, where he spent six months in 1949-1950. The setting depicts a group of women engrossed in their daily tasks of sewing, needlepoint and knitting. In spite of their preoccupation with their chores, the women's expressions reflect deep depression and despair and they are portrayed as being psychologically removed from those around them. They work with very sharp instruments within a highly patterned and capricious composition, elements which Lawrence used time and time again in his early works to convey moods of anger and anxiety. As New York Times critic Aline B. Louchheim Saarinen later points out, "something of the franticness and anxieties which must have been burdening him is reflected in some of the paintings of this period, which were too-busy patterning, jagged angry points and razzle-dazzle sparkles run rampant." (Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson History of African American Artists from 1792 to the Present, New York, p. 305)
Lawrence continued to paint during the time he spent in Hillside, which proved to be very therapeudic. He did not suffer from serious self-destructive tendencies, such as Vincent Van Gogh or Jackson Pollack, rather as Louchheim Saarinen writes, "Lawrence simply had nervous difficulties neither particularly complicated nor unique, which became so much of a burden that he voluntarily sought help. These paintings did not come from his temporary illness, as they always have--and it is true for most real artists--the paintings express the healthiest portion of his personality, the part that is in close touch with both the inner depths and his own feeling and with the outer world." (Ibid, p. 306) Lawrence remarked that his hospital experience "was one of the most important periods in my life. It opened up a whole new avenue for me; it was . . . a very deep experience." (Robin Updike, "Jacob Lawrence and the Art of Observation," The Seattle Times, July 1998) Lawrence emerged from the hospital with renewed strength and vigor as well as with a deeper acceptance of his own artistic abilities.
A related painting entitled Occupational Therapy No. 2 is in the collection of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Lawrence continued to paint during the time he spent in Hillside, which proved to be very therapeudic. He did not suffer from serious self-destructive tendencies, such as Vincent Van Gogh or Jackson Pollack, rather as Louchheim Saarinen writes, "Lawrence simply had nervous difficulties neither particularly complicated nor unique, which became so much of a burden that he voluntarily sought help. These paintings did not come from his temporary illness, as they always have--and it is true for most real artists--the paintings express the healthiest portion of his personality, the part that is in close touch with both the inner depths and his own feeling and with the outer world." (Ibid, p. 306) Lawrence remarked that his hospital experience "was one of the most important periods in my life. It opened up a whole new avenue for me; it was . . . a very deep experience." (Robin Updike, "Jacob Lawrence and the Art of Observation," The Seattle Times, July 1998) Lawrence emerged from the hospital with renewed strength and vigor as well as with a deeper acceptance of his own artistic abilities.
A related painting entitled Occupational Therapy No. 2 is in the collection of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.