Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence 2024 Wall Calendar

Renowned painter Jacob Lawrence made his mark on modern art with his devotion to documenting the everyday life and struggles of African Americans throughout history. He is known for depicting the lives of subjects such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and John Brown. In his first narrative series, The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture, Lawrence portrays Toussaint's journey from a child enslaved at birth to a general who helped lead the Haitian Revolution, using historical events to explore his own contemporary Black experience. The original series, painted between 1936 and 1938, consisted of 41 panels. Fifty years later, he revisited the series, re-creating it as 15 silkscreen prints. Lawrence's reimagining is a testament to the connection and passion that he felt toward the innate themes of the series. Twelve of these prints are featured in this calendar so that we may continue the storied tradition of retelling-with Toussaint's narrative as well as with Lawrence's.