To Preserve Their Freedom

1988

The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture: To Preserve Their Freedom, 1988. Jacob Lawrence (American, 1917–2000). Silkscreen on paper; sheet: 55.9 x 81.6 cm (22 x 32 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, 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 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. 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.”