Artwork Page for To Preserve Their Freedom

Details / Information for To Preserve Their Freedom

Series Title: The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture

To Preserve Their Freedom

1988

Jacob Lawrence

(American, 1917–2000)
printer

Lou Stovall Workshop, Inc.

publisher

Amistad Research Center

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Culture
America
Medium
silkscreen on paper
Measurements
Sheet: 55.9 x 81.6 cm (22 x 32 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Agnes Gund in honor of Gordon Gund 2019.79.15
Copyright
© The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print
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Did You Know?

Jacob Lawrence reinterpreted a series of paintings to make these prints, changing their forms, composition, colors, and scale—a process that he described as “another creative step.”

Description

These prints reinterpret a series of paintings that African American artist Jacob Lawrence made about Toussaint L’Ouverture, a Haitian revolutionary. Born into slavery, L’Ouverture led an uprising that freed Haiti from European rule. After hearing the story as a young man and being struck that it had been omitted from his formal education, Lawrence began to paint episodes from L’Ouverture’s biography, using bright colors and simple forms to evoke its drama.
A horizontally oriented print with defined, solid colors, creates five people with dark skin tones, lunging leftward and holding rifles. One wears a red and yellow headwrap with a yellow hoop earring protruding from it and a white shirt and red skirt. Another is the only person with their head turned to our right, red splattering their chest and arm thrown wide. Some move through wavy tendrils in shades of green, others over brown and gray ground.

To Preserve Their Freedom

1988

Jacob Lawrence, Lou Stovall Workshop, Inc., Amistad Research Center

(American, 1917–2000)
America

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