Dozens of notable figures have played a part in Atlantic City’s history, from Thomas Edison and Diamond Jim Brady to Jay-Z and Donald Trump. Yet few people know that one of the most respected American artists of the 20th century was born here.

Jacob Armistead Lawrence’s family was part of the “Great Migration” during and after World War I, in which thousands of black Southerners moved North in search of better lives, far from Jim Crow. The Lawrence family came to Atlantic City, where Jacob was born on September 7, 1917.

It isn’t known whether young Jacob was exposed to artistic influences during his years in Atlantic City. The family soon moved to Philadelphia, and after his parents divorced, 13-year-old Lawrence settled in Harlem with his mother and siblings.

Harlem in the 1920s was bursting with creative energy. Its black community was growing rapidly, and the subsequent explosion of theater, art and literature, known as the New Negro Movement or Harlem Renaissance, provided fertile ground for the ambitious youngster.

Lawrence gained his first known exposure to art at age 12, when he studied under painter and muralist Charles Alston. When Alston created a community workshop in his studio on West 141st Street, the teenage Lawrence rented a corner to paint in as poets and authors like Countee Cullen, Claude McKay and Ralph Ellison discussed art and the day’s events.

By the age of 19, Lawrence had begun painting scenes of everyday Harlem life. He developed a style all his own called “dynamic cubism,” which was informed by European masters like Picasso and Matisse and the vibrant colors of Harlem. The work was at once realistic and abstract.

Lawrence’s first major series of paintings depicted Toussaint L’Ouverture, the freed slave and Haitian general who helped to lead the first successful slave revolution in the Americas. When Lawrence was just 21, the paintings were exhibited in a museum show—a tremendous honor for such a young talent.

It was a portent of things to come. A series of paintings followed that depicted noteworthy African Americans like famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass and Underground Railroad founder Harriet Tubman.

In 1938, Lawrence secured a position on FDR’s Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project. This was a New Deal program that put artists to work creating pieces for libraries, schools and hospitals. For the next year and a half, Lawrence had a steady income and the chance to hone his craft. He returned to his roots, creating a series of 60 paintings called The Migration of the Negro. The paintings made him famous, and in November 1941, about half of them were reproduced in Fortune magazine. It was the first time the publication had given such attention to an African American artist.

Another personal milestone came when Lawrence was invited to exhibit in New York’s prestigious Downtown Gallery. Once again, as the first black artist to be represented by a major New York gallery, he made history.

During the Second World War, Lawrence joined the Coast Guard, where he served aboard the first racially integrated ship in Guard history. He was ultimately appointed combat artist, but none of his paintings from the time survive.

After the war, Lawrence taught at the Pratt Institute, Brandeis University and the University of Washington. One-man exhibitions of his work appeared in New York, Baltimore, Portland, Boston and Washington.

In 1965, when paintings from the Migration series were shown in Nigeria, Lawrence crossed the Atlantic and spent eight months living and painting in the African country.

During the late 1960s, his works were exhibited in a Manhattan gallery owned by Terry Dintenfass, who coincidentally also hailed from Atlantic City, and whose first galleries were located on the Boardwalk.

Later in life, Lawrence lived in Seattle. In 1983, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honor society of 250 select architects, composers, artists and writers. Seven years later, President George H.W. Bush presented him with the National Medal of the Arts, the highest award given to artists by the United States government.

When Lawrence died on June 9, 2000, he was hailed as one of the foremost modern American painters and chroniclers of black American life. Honored throughout his career, Lawrence’s artistic legacy is secure.

Though he didn’t spend much time in Atlantic City, the seaside town should be proud to claim him as its son.

By David Schwartz

David G. Schwartz (www.dieiscast.com), an Atlantic City native, is the Director of the Center for Gaming Research at UNLV and the author of several books, including Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling.