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Jacob Lawrence: The Toussaint L'Ouverture Series
10/7/2000 - 12/3/2000
The Norton Museum of Art opens a new exhibition entitled Jacob
Lawrence: The Toussaint L'Ouverture Series on October 7, 2000. This
exhibition features all 41 paintings from the artist's 1937 - 38
pictorial history of the Haitian Revolution, the only successful
slave rebellion in the history of the Western Hemisphere. The
Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, New Orleans and the
Norton Museum of Art have collaborated on the organization of this
show - which will only be presented in West Palm Beach. The
Toussaint L'Ouverture Series is from the Aaron Douglas Collection at
The Amistad Research Center and presented at the Norton Museum of
Art with the support of the Ralph H. and Elizabeth C. Norton
Philanthropic Trust.
Born in 1917 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Jacob Lawrence was raised
in Harlem where he not only witnessed the poverty and prejudice that
most African-Americans faced in the early 20th century, but also the
remarkable cultural, intellectual and political development known as
the Harlem Renaissance. Lawrence reached maturity in the 1930s, at a
time when Harlem was among the world's most dynamic centers of
aesthetic and social innovation. As orators shouted their messages
from nearly every street corner in Harlem, W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain
Locke were challenging and redefining the very identity of the
African-American people; Langston Hughes was introducing the black
experience to modernist poetry; Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway
retooled jazz and African-American blues for the big band and the
orchestra; and such artists as Aaron Douglas, Charles Alston,
Archibald Motley, Loïs Mailou Jones, Romare Bearden and William H.
Johnson introduced an expressive force to modern painting few had
ever witnessed. It was against the backdrop of this vibrant milieu
that the 20-year-old Jacob Lawrence made a dramatic debut with his
Toussaint L'Ouverture Series.
During Lawrence's childhood, the story of black America was all but
ignored in the schools, indeed most people believed that
African-Americans had no history or at least none that merited study
or perpetuation. In reaction to this bigotry, the scholar and
bibliophile Arthur A. Schomburg, over a 30 year period, assembled a
vast collection of books, manuscripts, prints, drawings and
ephemera, all in some way describing and detailing the richness of
the African-American experience. Schomburg's holdings were
eventually acquired by the New York Public Library and housed in the
Harlem branch, where they were repeatedly consulted during
Lawrence's research of Toussaint L'Ouverture and throughout the
execution of his 1937-38 series devoted to the Haitian
revolutionary. Lawrence's experience with the Schomburg collection
led the artist to embrace black history as a crucial theme in his
work. Not only did the Toussaint L'Ouverture paintings emerge from
his investigation of the Schomburg material, but so too did
subsequent series devoted to Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass,
John Brown and the migration of African-Americans from the rural
south to northern industrial centers.
Slave Trade reaches its height in Haiti, 1730., 1937-1938, Gouache
on paper, 27.9x48.3 cm., Aaron Douglas Collection, The Amistad
Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans The Norton Museum of
Art opens a new exhibition entitled Jacob Lawrence: The Toussaint
L'Ouverture Series on October 7, 2000. This exhibition features all
41 paintings from the artist's 1937 - 38 pictorial history of the
Haitian Revolution, the only successful slave rebellion in the
history of the Western Hemisphere. The Amistad Research Center at
Tulane University, New Orleans and the Norton Museum of Art have
collaborated on the organization of this show - which will only be
presented in West Palm Beach. The Toussaint L'Ouverture Series is
from the Aaron Douglas Collection at The Amistad Research Center and
presented at the Norton Museum of Art with the support of the Ralph
H. and Elizabeth C. Norton Philanthropic Trust. Born in 1917 in
Atlantic City, New Jersey, Jacob Lawrence was raised in Harlem where
he not only witnessed the poverty and prejudice that most
African-Americans faced in the early 20th century, but also the
remarkable cultural, intellectual and political development known as
the Harlem Renaissance. Lawrence reached maturity in the 1930s, at a
time when Harlem was among the world's most dynamic centers of
aesthetic and social innovation. As orators shouted their messages
from nearly every street corner in Harlem, W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain
Locke were challenging and redefining the very identity of the
African-American people; Langston Hughes was introducing the black
experience to modernist poetry; Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway
retooled jazz and African-American blues for the big band and the
orchestra; and such artists as Aaron Douglas, Charles Alston,
Archibald Motley, Loïs Mailou Jones, Romare Bearden and William H.
Johnson introduced an expressive force to modern painting few had
ever witnessed. It was against the backdrop of this vibrant milieu
that the 20-year-old Jacob Lawrence made a dramatic debut with his
Toussaint L'Ouverture Series. General L'Ouverture collected forces
at Marmelade, and on October 9, 1794, left with 500 men to capture
San Miguel., 1937-1938, Gouache on paper, 27.9x48.3 cm., Aaron
Douglas Collection, The Amistad Research Center, Tulane University,
New Orleans During Lawrence's childhood, the story of black America
was all but ignored in the schools, indeed most people believed that
African-Americans had no history or at least none that merited study
or perpetuation. In reaction to this bigotry, the scholar and
bibliophile Arthur A. Schomburg, over a 30 year period, assembled a
vast collection of books, manuscripts, prints, drawings and
ephemera, all in some way describing and detailing the richness of
the African-American experience. Schomburg's holdings were
eventually acquired by the New York Public Library and housed in the
Harlem branch, where they were repeatedly consulted during
Lawrence's research of Toussaint L'Ouverture and throughout the
execution of his 1937-38 series devoted to the Haitian
revolutionary. Lawrence's experience with the Schomburg collection
led the artist to embrace black history as a crucial theme in his
work. Not only did the Toussaint L'Ouverture paintings emerge from
his investigation of the Schomburg material, but so too did
subsequent series devoted to Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass,
John Brown and the migration of African-Americans from the rural
south to northern industrial centers. Napoleon's attempt to restore
slavery in Haiti was unsuccessful. Dessalines, Chef of the Blacks,
defeated LeClerc. Black men, women, and children took up arms to
preserve their freedom, November 1802., 1937-1938, Gouache on paper,
27.9x48.3 cm., Aaron Douglas Collection, The Amistad Research
Center, Tulane University, New Orleans Lawrence's 41 paintings trace
more than events from the life of Toussaint L'Ouverture. The series
is a rich and methodical historical analysis that cogently connects
European expansionism, colonialism, plantation economies, the slave
trade, Enlightenment philosophy and Napoleon's emergence in France
to the establishment of a Haitian Republic. Epic in historical
scope, yet rendered in human terms (and on a human scale), Lawrence
conceived the Toussaint L'Ouverture Series as paintings of
"liberation in small increments on a daily basis." This fundamental
engagement with "the human quality in man" keeps the Toussaint
L'Ouverture Series and all of Lawrence's work from ever becoming
pedantic, moralizing or condescending. Bound to the social climate
of his age, with all its attendant anger and prejudice, Jacob
Lawrence's uncommon contribution to the 20th century was an art that
sought justice without cruelty, truth without bitterness and
revealed nobility of human freedom.
Lawrence's 41 paintings trace more than events from the life of
Toussaint L'Ouverture. The series is a rich and methodical
historical analysis that cogently connects European expansionism,
colonialism, plantation economies, the slave trade, Enlightenment
philosophy and Napoleon's emergence in France to the establishment
of a Haitian Republic. Epic in historical scope, yet rendered in
human terms (and on a human scale), Lawrence conceived the Toussaint
L'Ouverture Series as paintings of "liberation in small increments
on a daily basis." This fundamental engagement with "the human
quality in man" keeps the Toussaint L'Ouverture Series and all of
Lawrence's work from ever becoming pedantic, moralizing or
condescending. Bound to the social climate of his age, with all its
attendant anger and prejudice, Jacob Lawrence's uncommon
contribution to the 20th century was an art that sought justice
without cruelty, truth without bitterness and revealed nobility of
human freedom.
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