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• 1 media/General Toussaint.jpg 2024-11-06T12:49:04-08:00 General Toussaint L'Ouverture 61 plain 2024-12-17T13:08:05-08:00
  Left: General Toussaint L'Ouverture, Statesman and military genius, esteemed by the Spaniards, feared by the English, dreaded by the French, hated by the planters, and reverenced by the Blacks (1937) / Right: General Toussaint L'Ouverture (1986)
  
  Throughout the series, Lawrence depicts L'Ouverture in action, highlighting the key aspects of his life and his role in the Haitian Revolution. For this reason, the portrait of L'Ouverture stands out from the rest of the works. When creating the original painting series in the 1930s, Lawrence was immersed in the Harlem Renaissance, which focused on reclaiming Black figures and history. Lawrence's portrait of L'Ouverture plays a crucial role in this reclamation movement. This portrait directly references a 19th-century French lithograph, known for its exaggerated, caricature-like features. Lawrence reworks it to exalt L'Ouverture’s prowess and leadership while simultaneously acknowledging the multifaceted nature of his legacy. Lawrence’s portrait of L'Ouverture is part of a broader movement to reclaim and uplift Black historical narratives, emphasizing the importance of figures like L'Ouverture in the fight against colonialism. 

• 1 media/LL BG.png media/LL BG.png 2024-10-20T10:29:00-07:00 Lawrence's L'Ouverture 55 Lawrence’s L’Ouverture combines intimate scenes from Toussaint’s life with his leadership of the Haitian people, revealing the depth and complexity of the man and demonstrating that he was no mere anomaly in history. image_header 2024-12-18T07:15:23-08:00

  I am sure much of what they said was romanticized but that didn’t matter. What mattered was to have something to be proud of, something to look up to.             

  Jacob Lawrence Interview w/ Phillips Collection

  
  In 1938, at just twenty years old, Jacob Lawrence created a series of forty-one paintings depicting the life of Toussaint L'Ouverture. While already a big hit in his own time, this wasn't the end of the story for Lawrence's Toussaint. The painting series continued to spark discussion amongst many art lovers, the leaders of the Black Power movement [1], and even children through the publication of picture books [3]. Nearly fifty years later, Lawrence would bring the series back as a series of silkscreen prints produced in collaboration with printmaker Lou Stovall. The fifteen screen prints of select works from the original series remind us that the fight against white supremacy and Western imperialism in America is far from over and that L'Ouverture's work is far from finished. 
  
  But this isn't to say that Toussaint L'Overture's image is as clean as Lawrence makes it seem. Like the signature flat, bold style of his painting, Lawrence simplifies L'Ouverture into a figure synonymous with only one word: resistance. [4] In reality, L'Ouverture has been as controversial as he is celebrated. [5] Lawrence doesn't show Lawrence's tolerance of his former enslavers, or his return to the plantation system that had gripped Haiti so soon after its liberation, as can be seen in the [Special Collections] comic book on display in our exhibit. Today, it is important that when we praise L'Ouverture as a hero, we do so consciously, acknowledging his faults alongside his victories.