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Lawrence grew up, he said, studying politically-engaged American artists like Anton Refregier, Ben Shahn, William Gropper and Philip Evergood, and he went often to look at Picasso’s “Guernica,” which, back then, was on view at the Modern.

But works by artists who learned from him — Ben Shahn, Philip Evergood, Thelma Johnson Streat, Xavier Gonzalez and Marion Greenwood — outnumber his own.

Examples of personal directories that weren’t address books, including a loose stack of paper, cards and envelope jottings by painter Philip Evergood; the hulking dual Rolodex of art dealer Holly Solomon; and a floppy disk that painter Page Allen gave to a D.C. gallery with names of people to be contacted about a 1998 show.

Nonetheless, the collector and dealer Sidney Janis and the abstract artist Ad Reinhardt were admirers, as were more socially minded painters like Ben Shahn, Robert Gwathmey and Philip Evergood.

Within a few years he had attracted enough attention to be included in a group show with Philip Evergood, Jacob Lawrence and Ben Shahn at the ACA Gallery in Manhattan.