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Jacob Lawrence  Jacob Lawrence (1917 ‚ 2000)    With the culture of Harlem as his primary source of inspiration, Jacob Lawrence possessed a consciousness of black history that is generally not included in textbooks. Jacob Lawrence was a student of life and made exposing the reality of black history though art his life long pursuit. After a long period of research and study research, Jacob Lawrence began his first series documenting African history. This effort became known as the establishment of the first black Western republic through the efforts of military leader Toussaint L'Ouverture. Jacob Lawrence was twenty-one years old when he completed the forty-one panel Toussaint L'Ouverture series in 1938. This series, based upon Toussaint L'Ouverture's struggle to free Haiti from the tyranny of the Spanish and the French in the early nineteenth centuries, set the standard for Jacobís lifelong sojourn to explore, expose and visually capture black life within a narrative context. Jacob Lawrence painted forty-one small works that chronologically documented the history of the Haitian revolution. These works documented Columbus's discovery of Haiti on December 6, 1492, and chronicled Toussaint's victory over the French with the signing of the Declaration of Independence on January 1, 1804. Never to be known as a traditionalist Lawrence used quotations to function as a verbal description of his art works and to enhance themes of his artworks. An example of this is, General Toussaint L'Ouverture, number twenty in the series of paintings, is labeled "statesman and military genius, esteemed by the Spaniards, feared by the English, dreaded by the French, hated by the planters, and revered by the blacks." In 1938 Jacob Lawrenceís Toussaint L'Ouverture series premiered during Lawrence's first solo exhibition outside of Harlem. Since its premier, the series has been exhibited at museums throughout the continental United States including the Baltimore Museum and Museums in the Chicago area. The series is currently housed in the Amistad Research Center's Aaron Douglas Collection, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Lawrence's original intention was to provide African Americans with a sense of pride, accomplishment, and hope during a time when many blacks were experiencing extreme political, economic, and racial difficulties. In 1986, the Spradling Ames Corporation and the Amistad Research Center, in conjunction with Lawrence and silk-screen artist Lou Stovall, decided to publish the works of Lawrence in silk-screen. General Toussaint L'Ouverture was the first painting to be issued as part of this silk-screen presentation and has been described as " Jacob Lawrence's most heroic painting and maybe his most decorative." Born Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1917  Harlem Art Workshop, New York, 1932-1939  American Artists School, New York 1937-1939  Instructor, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, Summers, 1954, 1968-1972  Instructor, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, 1955-1970  Full Professor, University of Washington, Seattle, 1970 Exhibitions: His prolific works include some of the following: STREET ORATOR, 1936 BAR N' GRILL, 1937 CLINIC, 1937 MIGRATIONS OF THE NEGRO, a group of 60 gouache panels, 1937-1938 TOUSSAINT L'OVERTURE, 41 paintings in the series, 1938 ...AND THE MIGRANTS KEPT COMING, 60 panels in the Historical Migration Series of African-Americans from the South, 1940-1941 JOHN BROWN'S BODY, 1941 LIFE OF HARRIET TUBMAN, 40 panels, 1942 NEGRO MIGRATION NORTHWARD IN WORLD WAR, 60 panels, 1942 THIS IS HARLEM, 30 paintings in the Harlem Series, 1942-1943 THE LIBRARIES ARE APPRECIATED, from the Harlem Series, 1943 THE LOVERS, 1946 IN THE GARDEN, 1950 STRUGGLE: FROM THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, 30 in the series covering all subjects dealing with American history, 1955-1956 PARADE, 1960 PRAYING MINISTERS, 1962 DAYBREAK - A TIME TO REST, 1967 MAN WITH SQUARE, from the Builders Series (1978-1980), 1978 BUILDERS, original on gouache paper, (see exhibit), 1980 HIROSHIMA, 1982 BOY WITH KITE, 1983 Begin slide show