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categorized LawrenceIs work at "Primitive" or "Neo-Primitive" what's your feeling on that?

A. I think his work is very sophisticated. There is a kind of sensitive power at work in his figures. They are like nothing we've seen before in terms of the pictorization of the black figure. He is a very elegant designer, a beautiful colorist, a wonderful draughtsman and his angular figures all bespeak this. Lawrence is an intellectual not a primitive.

Q. What would you call his work?

A. Well, I think it has a special quality for which we have no precedent. There is nothing similar to it which can be used as a reference but it may find a parallel in some aspects of African Art. As you know, African Art is not primitive. Primitive is one who gropes and tries to create something moving and who, somehow, luckily creates a charming work. African Art is a sophisticated highly refined art form. The African sculptor knew what he was doing and so does Lawrence. Jake Lawrence is a very intelligent painter.

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Q. We've been talking about "official" acceptance but I'd like to know if there was an "in-group" of artist who established their own standards of excellence during the twenties and thirties?

A. Well, there was the Harlem Artists Guild. Spinky (Charles) Alston, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Mike (Henry) Bannarm, Eugent Grisgsby - a whole host of guys up there working - a fellow who went down to Le Moyne to teach, I forget his