JACOB LAWRENCE (1917 - 2000) Forest Creatures (Harriet Tubman, An Escape).

JACOB LAWRENCE (1917 - 2000)
Forest Creatures (Harriet Tubman, An Escape).

Etching and drypoint on cream wove paper, 1969. 248x346 mm; 9¾x13⅝ inches, full margins. Signed and numbered 21/28 in pencil, lower margin. Published by the Artists Equity, New York.

This scarce print is Jacob Lawrence's first published etching. This same impression was last sold at Swann Galleries on February 6, 2007.

This 1969 etching, according to Peter Nesbett, closely resembles one of Jacob Lawrence's paintings illustrating the children's book Harriet and the Promised Land, published by Windmill Books and Simon & Schuster in 1968. The caption for this image reads "A snake said "Hiss!"/An owl said "Whoo!"/Harriet said, "We are coming through!/A runaway slave/with a price on her head,/I'll be free", said Harriet,/"Or I'll be dead!" Lawrence first made a series of paintings on the subject of the Underground Railroad with the series The Life of Harriet Tubman in 1940. Nesbett L69-1.