Jacob Lawrence’s Toussaint L’Ouverture Series

McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

February 8, 2018 to May 6, 2018

As a young student of American history, Jacob Lawrence was frustrated with the lack of narratives addressing the African American experience, as well as the absence of black heroes from history books. He later discovered that there were indeed black heroes to admire and emulate, including Harriet Tubman. He was most fascinated, however, with the leader of the 18th-century Haitian Revolution, Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743–1803). In 1938 he painted his first image of the narrative, but soon realized that this great and complex story needed to be a series.

 The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture, No. 22: Settling down at St. Marc, he took possession of two important posts (detail), 1938. Jacob Lawrence (American, 1917–2000). Tempera on paper; 19 x 11 1/2 in. Courtesy Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, Aaron Douglas Collection.

Eventually, Lawrence would create 41 panels about Toussaint L’Ouverture and the struggle for Haitian self-governance. A gifted printmaker, he decided to create a portfolio of 15 screenprints based on the panels.

Echoing Thomas Jefferson’s words that “all men are created equal,” Toussaint L’Ouverture said, “I was born a slave, but nature gave me the soul of a free man.” This sentiment informed his leadership of the Haitian Revolution, and created what was the first free colonial state in which race was not a factor in determining social status.

This exhibition features 15 rarely seen silkscreen prints created by American artist Jacob Lawrence (1917–2001) between 1986 and 1997. The series portrays the life of Toussaint L’Ouverture (1742–1803), the former slave turned leader of Haiti’s independence movement. L’Ouverture led the fight to liberate Saint-Domingue from French colonial rule and to emancipate the slaves during the 1791 Haitian Revolution, the first successful campaign to abolish slavery in modern history. Lawrence had explored the same subject more than 40 years earlier—when he was only 20 years old—in a series of paintings of the same title (now in the Amistad Research Center, New Orleans). The celebrated paintings, which were featured prominently at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1939, laid the groundwork for Lawrence’s lifelong interest in the human quest for freedom and social justice.

 

While he based these later prints on the earlier 11 x 19-inch paintings, Lawrence distilled the story to 15 works from the original 41 panels and significantly expanded their scale. He worked closely with DC-based master printmaker Lou Stovall to translate the colors and fluid movement of the original tempera paint to each composition. 

 

In the print series, the narrative follows L’Ouverture from his birth to his rise as the commander of the revolutionary army to his eventual capture by Napoleon’s men. In the original painted series, Lawrence continued the story through the death of L’Ouverture as a prisoner of war in 1803, just one year before Haiti declared independence with the crowning of Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines. In highlighting the life of the courageous leader Toussaint L’Ouverture, Lawrence invites us to reflect on Haiti’s transformation from an enslaved French colony to the first black Western republic. At the same time, the series reminds us of the country’s ongoing struggle to overcome poverty and political instability.

Jacob Lawrence

The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture: The Capture (1987)

 

Jacob Lawrence

The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture: Toussaint at Ennery (1989)

Jacob Lawrence, Flotilla from Toussaint L’Ouverture, 1996. Screenprint. The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Foundation for the Arts. ˝ 2017 Jacob Lawrence / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York
Photograph courtesy Davidson Galleries, Seattle.

This exhibition is organized by Lyle Williams, Curator of Prints and Drawings, for the McNay Art Museum. 







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