Wadsworth Atheneum
Hartford, CT
860-278-2670
http://www.wadsworthatheneum.org
Jacob Lawrence and Expressions of Freedom
January 29 - June 4,
2000
Jacob Lawrence, a figurative painter with an unequaled gift for
storytelling, is renowned for visual dramatizations of the black American
experience. Fifteen recent screen prints from the artist's celebrated Toussaint
L 'Ouverture series are the heart of Jacob Lawrence and Expressions
of Freedom, an exhibition presented by The Amistad Foundation at the
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, January 29 - June 4, 2000. (left:
Jacob Lawrence (b. 1917), The March, 1995, screenprint, 18 x 28 inches.
General L'Ouverture collected forces at Marmelade and on October 9, 1794,
left with 500 men to capture San Miguel)
Lawrence, who has been foremost among African-American
artists for more than six decades, has often 
devoted series of paintings to a single subject. These
range from contemporary genre scenes, set in supermarkets and in Harlem;
to historic events, including black migration to America's northern cities
and the aftermath of Hiroshima; to sagas of heroic figures who symbolize
the struggle for emancipation and equality. Among these are John Brown,
Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Toussaint L'Ouverture, a former
Haitian slave who liberated his island-nation from French rule in 1795.
(right: Jacob Lawrence (b. 1917), Strategy, 1994, screenprint,
18 1/2 x 28 1/2 inches. The Blacks were led by three chiefs, Jean François,
Biassou and Jeannot; Toussaint serving as aide-de-camp to Biassou)
"With
the new millennium, The Amistad Foundation launches a year-long exhibition
series that examines the ideal and the reality of freedom in the 20th century,"
said its executive director, Deirdre Bibby. "Jacob Lawrence's Toussaint
L 'Ouverture portfolio is an apt starting point for this exploration,
for it is a brilliant commentary on the meaning and value of freedom, and
the power of art to inform and transform." (left: Jacob Lawrence
(b. 1917), To Preserve Their Freedom, 1988, screenprint, 18 1/2 x
28 1/4 inches. Napoléon's attempt to restore slavery in Haiti
was unsuccessful. Desalines, Chief of the Blacks, defeated LeClerc. Black
men, women and children took up arms to preserve their freedom, November
1802)
Toussaint
L 'Ouverture was the first of Lawrence's many major
series. Researched and created during 1937-38, and completed when he was
only 21, the paintings thrust Lawrence onto the national art scene. His
first solo show outside Harlem, held at the De Porres Interracial Council
headquarters in Manhattan in 1938, was devoted to the Toussaint series.
It was also a highlight of two major surveys of African-American art--in
1939 at the Baltimore Museum of Art (where the series was allotted its own
gallery), and in 1940 in Chicago at the American Negro Exposition, where
Lawrence won second prize. (left: Jacob Lawrence (b. 1917), St.
Marc, 1994, screenprint, 28 7/16 x 18 1/2 inches. Settling down at
St. Marc, he took possession of two important posts)
The original Toussaint series, painted in egg tempera
on white paper, comprises forty-one 
panels, each measuring only eleven by nine inches.
Lawrence also wrote captions to accompany the paintings. In 1986, when he
began transferring these older paintings to screen prints, Lawrence decided
to rework many of the images he had created a half century earlier. Image
sizes were more than doubled, and colors and compositions were enhanced
or brightened. (right: Jacob Lawrence (b. 1917), Deception,
1997, screenprint, 18 5/8 x 28 1/4 inches. During the truce Toussaint
is deceived and arrested by LeClerc. LeClerc led Toussaint to believe that
he was sincere, believing that when Toussaint was out of the way, the Blacks
would surrender)
"Each
of the fifteen panels, with their flat, sharply defined forms and their
variations in a consistent color pattern, are charged with tremendous feeling
and movement," Bibby stated. "Jacob Lawrence's striking use of
dynamic compositional devices and complex figural interrelationships has
a powerful abstract visual effect. Each stands on its own as an object of
contemplation. Together, the story they relate--the emergence of the first
black republic in the west--is an epic narrative about human aspirations,
particularly that of black people," she concluded. (left: Jacob
Lawrence (b. 1917), Flotilla, 1996, screenprint, 18 3/8 x 28 7/8
inches. Napoléon's troops under LeClerc arrive at the shores of
Haiti)
The Toussaint L 'Ouverture series is on loan from
The Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, which also
owns the original paintings.
Jacob Lawrence and Expressions of Freedom also includes contemporary Haitian paintings from the collections
of the Wadsworth Atheneum and The Amistad Foundation, as well as related
photographs and prints belonging to The Amistad Foundation.
About the Artist:
Jacob
Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1917. He spent his early
childhood in Easton and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but at age 13 moved
to Harlem with his mother and siblings. He received his training at community
art centers in Harlem, the easel project of the Works Progress Administration,
and the American Artists School in New York. (left: Jacob Lawrence
(b. 1917), The Burning, 1997, screenprint, 18 3/4 x 29 inches. Henri
Christoph, rather than surrender to LeClerc, sets fire to La Cape. Christoph,
one of Toussaint's aides, sent word that the French were in Haitian waters
-- that her had held them off as long as he could. He did not want them
"to have the pleasure" of what the Blacks had set up)
His works are in the permanent collections of the nation's
leading museums. In the Northeast alone these include the Museum of Modem
Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Brooklyn
Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Philadelphia Museum; and Wadsworth
Atheneum.
The Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective
of Lawrence's work in 1974. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts
and Letters in 1983. Among the many other awards he has received are the
National Medal of Arts (1990) and honorary doctorates from Yale (1986) and
Harvard (1995).
Read more about the Wadsworth
Atheneum in Resource Library Magazine
For further biographical information please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national
registry of historic artists.
rev. 12/8/10
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Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.
Copyright 2010 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights
reserved.
Jacob Lawrence, a figurative painter with an unequaled gift for
storytelling, is renowned for visual dramatizations of the black American
experience. Fifteen recent screen prints from the artist's celebrated Toussaint
L 'Ouverture series are the heart of Jacob Lawrence and Expressions
of Freedom, an exhibition presented by The Amistad Foundation at the
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, January 29 - June 4, 2000. (left:
Jacob Lawrence (b. 1917), The March, 1995, screenprint, 18 x 28 inches.
General L'Ouverture collected forces at Marmelade and on October 9, 1794,
left with 500 men to capture San Miguel)
