Exhibitions

Jacob Lawrence: Toussaint L’Ouverture Series of Prints

April 29 - June 12, 2011

In the Atrium Gallery

These 15 prints, in the Atrium and continued in the Calvert Gallery, are based on 41 paintings from a series also entitled Toussaint L'Ouverture, which was completed in 1938 and currently in the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans. From 1986–1997, Lawrence reworked and distilled the series while translating them to silkscreen. By completing this series of prints, the artist was able to disseminate the remarkable story of this Haitian leader in a succinct, but dramatic fashion.

Toussaint L'Ouverture was born a slave but by his early 30s, he became a leader in the Haitian revolution to bring about its independence from its European overseers. Eventually, he rose to become commander in chief of the revolutionary army. In 1800 he coordinated the effort to draw up Haiti's first democratic constitution. However, in 1802, before the Republic was firmly established, Toussaint was arrested by Napoleon Bonaparte's troops and sent to Paris, where he was imprisoned and died the following year. In his absence, Jean-Jacques Dessalines led the Hatitian rebellion until its completion, with the French forces finally defeated in 1803. In 1804 Haiti became the first black Western republic.

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