Eliana Willis

A sharp-eyed visitor to “Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle,” an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has identified a long-lost artwork by the pioneering African American Modernist that was hiding in plain sight—just across the park from the museum.
The lost painting, which belongs to Lawrence’s “Struggle: From the History of the American People” series (1954–56), was missing for 60 years, and has now been reunited with its companion works for the exhibition. The panel belongs to two neighbors of the visitor who spotted the work, and was purchased by the couple on the cheap around Christmas 1960, at a charity auction for a music school.
The person who recognized the work had been to the Met exhibition, and suggested the couple reach out to the museum. (The couple that owns the painting are not art collectors and wish to remain anonymous.)
“It is rare to make a discovery of this significance in modern art, and it is thrilling that a local visitor is responsible,” Met director Max Hollein said in a statement.
Jacob Lawrence, Panel 27. . . . for freedom we want and will have, for we have served this cruel land long enuff . . . —A Georgia Slave, 1810, (1956). From Struggle Series, 1954–56. © The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Randall Griffey and Sylvia Yount, who organized the traveling show’s Met iteration, were only CC’d on emails about the possible find last week, reports the New York Times.
Isabelle Duvernois, the Met’s modern paintings conservator, was promptly dispatched to the couple’s apartment and determined that not only was the painting authentic, it had been well cared-for and was ready to join the exhibition in short order.
Lawrence (1917–2000) painted the 30-panel “Struggle” series during the civil rights movement to highlight the roles of Black people, Native Americans, and women in building the country’s democracy.
Unlike the artist’s nine other series, which are all owned in their entirety by public collections, “Struggle” was purchased by a private collector, William Meyers, after two shows at Charles Alan’s New York gallery failed to attract an institutional buyer. It hasn’t been seen all together since the dealer’s 1958 show.
Jacob Lawrence poses in his Seattle, Washington, studio. Photo by George Rose/Getty Images.

Without a clause in the sales contract requiring the series stay intact, Meyers soon began selling the paintings individually. The current exhibition, which originated in January at the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, is set to travel—in its newly expanded form—to Birmingham, Alabama; Seattle, Washington; and Washington, DC.
There were no existing photographs of the newly rediscovered work, panel 16 in the series, which was known only by its title, here are combustibles in every State, which a spark might set fire to. —Washington, 26 December 1786.
“Since reuniting the ‘Struggle series,’ the absence of panel 16 has been felt acutely. Represented in our galleries as an empty frame, it was a mystery that we were all eager to solve,” Peabody-Essex Museum director Brian Kennedy said in a statement. “We are thrilled to learn of its discovery—one that came about thanks to close looking and careful observation by a museum visitor.”
Jacob Lawrence, Panel 25. I cannot speak sufficiently in praise of the firmness and deliberation with which my whole line received their approach . . . —Andrew Jackson, New Orleans, 1815, (1956.) From Struggle Series, 1954–56. © The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

The painting depicts Shays’s Rebellion, in which Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led an uprising of struggling farmers in western Massachusetts in 1786 and ’87. The conflict, a protest against high taxes, is credited with helping to inspire the Founding Fathers to hold the Constitutional Convention.
“Lawrence’s dynamic treatment of the 1786–87 Shays’s Rebellion reinforces the overall theme of the series—that democratic change is possible only through the actions of engaged citizens, an argument as timely today as it was when the artist produced his radical paintings in the mid-1950s,” Griffey and Yount said in a joint statement.
Four paintings from the series remain missing. Another long-lost “Struggle” painting, panel 19, turned up at auction during planning for the current show. Art collector Harvey Ross, who owns half the series, spent $413,000 to buy Tensions on the High Seas at New York’s Swann Auction Galleries in 2018.
“Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle” is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, August 29–November 1, 2020. 
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The worsening public health situation in Europe has meant that the FIAC art fair will not be taking place this year as usual in the Grand Palais. While the fair’s cancellation prompted mixed reactions in the Parisian art scene, many are determined to show that the spirit of the art week lives on in the numerous exhibitions opening at the city’s museums and galleries this week.
Gallery night this year is October 22, with spaces staying open to visit until 8 p.m, leaving enough time for art lovers to get home before the city’s 9 p.m. curfew.
Here is our pick of eight shows to see around Paris during this very unusual FIAC week.

Cindy Sherman at Fondation Louis VuittonThrough January 3, 2021

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #602 (2019). Collection Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. Courtesy of the Artist and Metro Pictures, New York © 2020 Cindy Sherman.

Shape-shifting photographer Cindy Sherman is getting the full treatment at Fondation Louis Vuitton, her first show in Paris since 2006. The works on view span the artist’s long career, from the groundbreaking “Untitled Film Stills” to her more recent “Disasters,” “Headshots,” and “Society Portraits.”
Due to the influx of visitors, the Fondation recommends guests come in the morning or after 5 p.m.

“Sarah Sze: Night Into Day” at Fondation CartierOctober 24, 2020–March 7, 2021

Sarah Sze, Centrifuge (2017). Presented at Haus Der Kunst © Sarah Sze Photo © Sarah Sze Studio​.

Sarah Sze is debuting two new works at Fondation Cartier that will reflect upon the architecture of the Jean Nouvel-designed building. Sze’s immersive installations are meditations on technology and the ways images are shared, transferred, and created.
Tickets are available to book online at Fondation Cartier.

“Hélène Delprat: Je déteste mes peintures. I hate my paintings…” at Christophe GaillardThrough November 7, 2020

Hélène Delprat, La guerre élégante (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Christophe Gaillard.

As the show’s title indicates, Delprat’s work is suffused with self deprecation, and yet, the artist says she persists because it’s her nature to keep doing things despite the pain they cause. In this case, it’s to our benefit, as the large-scale installation works combine fictional characters and universal themes in a delightful combination.

“Wu Tsang: visionary company” at Lafayette AnticipationsThrough January 3, 2021
Wu Tsang, production still, “The show is over” (2020), photo by Diana Pfammatter. Produced by Schauspielhaus Zürich, co-commissioned by Lafayette Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.

For the US artist’s first exhibition in France, Wu Tsang is presenting an immersive show including recent and past film, performance, and sculpture work, centered around the artist’s 2020 work The show is over, a multi-layered opera about liberation and alienation in which dancers perform to the rhythm of the African American poet and academic Fred Moten’s text Come on, get it!
Visitors do not need to book a ticket but may have to wait if the gallery is busy.

“Oscar Murillo: News” at David ZwirnerThrough December 19
Oscar Murillo, manifestation (2019-2020). ©Oscar Murillo Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner.

Oscar Murillo is showing paintings made while he was in quarantine in Colombia in the spring and summer of 2020. Part of his ongoing “manifestation” series, the works are the largest and most frenetic of the series to date, reflecting the heightened state of global anxiety during the present moment.
Appointments are encouraged but not required and can be booked online.

“Yesn’t” at Galerie SultanaThrough October 31 More

For contemporary artist Liu Xiaodong, personal history is the greatest source of inspiration. His childhood in rural China and his adolescence spent in Beijing studying to be an artist inform his practice even as he travels and shows internationally today, framing the way he sees the world.
Best known for his massive paintings depicting everyday people he comes across, Liu often works en plein air, setting up his canvases outside, quickly sketching an outline, getting to know his subjects, and taking photographs to work from later in the studio.
In an exclusive interview with Art21 as part of its new 10th season of Art in the Twenty-First Century, the artist is seen on a trip to a small town in Texas, just over the US-Mexico border. The border town is inextricably linked to President’s Trump’s anti-immigration policies and the conflict that border patrol officers face monitoring the wall.
“I prefer to paint places that can’t be easily judged by a single value system,” the artist tells Art21. “I want to experience the complexity of the world.” 

Video still from Art21 of Liu working on Tom, his Family, and his Friends (2020). Courtesy the artist and Massimo De Carlo, Milan/London/Hong Kong.

In the video, the artist is seen painting County Sheriff Tom Schmerber and his family, some of whom live across the border in Mexico. Schmerber was interviewed on TV explaining that while he doesn’t approve of Trump’s wall, if he sees migrants trying to cross the border, he is obligated to detain them. The portrait of Tom and his family as well as other paintings Liu created while visiting the US-Mexico border are the basis of his upcoming solo show at Dallas Contemporary called Borders, which will open on January 30, 2021. 
Liu sees parallels to his own experience being Chinese in America. “Many people don’t like China now, I know…” he says, adding that while politics only leaves room for black or white, art allows for nuance. “For artists, we’re always looking for a different path.” 

Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of Art21’s series Art in the Twenty-First Century below. The brand new 10th season of the show is available now at Art21.org. 
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This is an installment of “Art on Video,” a collaboration between Artnet News and Art21 that brings you clips of newsmaking artists. A new series of the nonprofit Art21’s flagship series Art in the Twenty-First Century is available now on PBS. Catch all episodes of other series like New York Close Up and Extended Play and learn about the organization’s educational programs at Art21.org.

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