Dreams #1

This painting reveals Lawrence’s play with composition, as he depicts a couple in their bed, with the bars of the bedstead doubling as bars of a prison cell. The title of the piece suggests they are dreaming, but their writhing bodies and the ghoulish figures dancing at the top of the bed suggest, perhaps, that this is a nightmare. Lawrence here couples color and composition: the bright yellow bars intersect the space, creating a divide amongst the various figures. The general tone of the piece is of a macabre nature: ‘Although the man and woman do not embrace, color and form lock them together, trapping them in a nightmare from which there is no escape’
SKU: 7028
Creator: Jacob Lawrence
Date: 1965
Original Medium: gouache on paper
Original Size: 31 x 22 1/2 in.
Location: New Britain Museum of American Art
© 2011 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York