The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 20, 2025

Print with defined, organic shapes filled with solid color, creating five people with dark skin tones, throwing themselves towards our left with rifles in their hands. One wears red and yellow wrap with a yellow hoop earing protruding from it, another is the only one 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 brown and grey ground.

To Preserve Their Freedom

1988

Jacob Lawrence

(American, 1917–2000)
printer

Lou Stovall Workshop, Inc.

publisher

Amistad Research Center

America
silkscreen on paper
Sheet: 55.9 x 81.6 cm (22 x 32 1/8 in.)
Gift of Agnes Gund in honor of Gordon Gund 2019.79.15
© The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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.
  • 1999-2007
    Collection of Health Legacy of Cleveland, Inc., Cleveland, OH
    February 6, 2007
    Swann Galleries, New York, NY
    February 19, 2008
    Swann Galleries, New York, NY
    DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY
    June 3, 2019
    the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Nesbett, Peter T., Jacob Lawrence, and Patricia Hills. Jacob Lawrence: The Complete Prints, 1963-2000 : a Catalogue Raisonné. Seattle: Francine Seders Gallery, in association with University of Washington Press, 2001. p. 71-85, nos. L86-2–L97-5.
    Peters, Emily J. "New Narratives: Contemporary works on paper emphasize storytelling.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 63, no. 4 (2023): 4-7. Reproduced: P. 6; Mentioned: P. 4
  • New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 19, 2023-April 14, 2024).
  • {{cite web|title=To Preserve Their Freedom|url=false|author=Jacob Lawrence, Lou Stovall Workshop, Inc., Amistad Research Center|year=1988|access-date=20 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2019.79.15