The Opener

Series Title: The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture

1997

Amistad Research Center

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Culture

America

Medium

silkscreen on paper

Measurements

Sheet: 47.6 x 73 cm (18 3/4 x 28 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Agnes Gund in honor of Gordon Gund 2019.79.7

This artwork is known to be under copyright.

Location

Not on view

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 silkscreen print in flat, opaque blocks of color depicts a rider with dark skin galloping a white horse across brown hills. Wearing a reddish-brown tunic and feathered red cap, the figure raises a thin rod while the horse pulls against a black bridle with its mouth open. Stylized green and black grass blades frame the foreground under a dark gray sky featuring a single gray cloud.

The Opener

1997

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

(American, 1917–2000)

America

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