Jacob Lawrence  (1917-2000)

The Legend of John Brown

1977 Portfolio of Twenty-two color screenprints on Domestic Etching paper from hand-cut film stencils, with complete text, full margins, loose as issued.

Image: 20 x 14 (50.8 X 35.6) Paper: 25 7/8 x 20 (65.7 X 50.8)

[One of 60 signed and numbered copies (with 1 artist proof and 20 hors commerce copies). Signed by the artist and author and numbered in pencil on the justification page. Each signed, dated and numbered in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Ives-Stillman, New Haven, with the blind stamp lower right. Published by the Founders Society of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, with the blimp stamp lower right. Superb impressions with vibrant and bright colors. With the printed poem John Brown by Robert Hayden, and the original linen-covered slip case.]

John Brown and his heroic actions were the inspiration for a generation, in addition to such artists as William Henry Johnson and Charles White, during the turbulent social and political debates of Lawrence’s youth.

Jacob Lawrence commented "The inspiration to paint the...John Brown series was motivated by historical events as told to us by the adults of our community...the black community. The relating of these events, for many of us, was not only very informative but also most exciting to us, the men and women of these stories were strong, daring, and heroic; and therefore we could and did relate to these by means of poetry, song, and paint."

John Brown had taken on the militant struggle of achieving freedom for African Americans with a single-mindedness and drive that overcame failures, bankruptcy and defeat. Upon his 1847 meeting with Brown for the first time, Frederick Douglass stated that, “though a white gentleman, (Brown) is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery.” It was at this meeting that Brown first outlines his plan to Douglass to lead a war to free slaves.

Brown is shown organizing early liberation raids in the Adirondacks, assisting the Underground Railroad and the Kansas militias of the mid-1850s, when the status of free or slave trade was decided. The last 8 prints tell the story of what took place on Sunday, October 12, 1859, when Brown and 21 men set out for Harper's Ferry, Virginia. Taking the town by complete surprise, they managed to hold it for 12 hours. On October 17, his place of retreat was discovered and taken by government forces. John Brown was found guilty of treason and first-degree murder and was hanged in Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia) on December 2, 1859.

Lawrence’s historical cycle describes each chapter of his mission from his early beginnings until his final fateful raid of Harpers Ferry. Unlike other artists who had portrayed Brown, Lawrence's paintings are the only depiction of the abolitionist's history in serial form. Also, he creates an heroic figure without ignoring the bloody outcome of Brown's chosen path.

Lawrence captures not only the physical action but he uses composition and colors to symbolize the spiritual burdens of a devout Christian, and the rise of black militancy and nationalism in the United States. His trial for treason and hanging cemented his martyrdom as a national legend. “He did not recognize unjust human laws, but resisted them as he was bid…” said Henry David Thoreau in an address to the citizens of Concord, Massachusetts. “No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature…”

Brown was a controversial figure in his lifetime, and remains so today. His single-mindedness, and the violence of his methods, were hailed as both heroic and insane. Though the raid on Harper's Ferry failed, Brown's actions, and his death, helped to instigate the Civil War, which ultimately achieved his goal.

Based on Lawrence’s 1941 series of 22 gouche and tempera paintings, The Life of John Brown, this set of prints was commissioned by the Detroit Institute of Arts. Jacob Lawrence used his first of three successive Julius Rosenwald Fund fellowships to complete the series of paintings – the same year he married Gwendolyn Knight. The 23-year-old artist had already received extraordinary attention for his earlier historical series of paintings, Frederick Douglass, the Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture, Harriet Tubman, and The Migration Series.

These original works from The Life of John Brown were too fragile for traveling exhibitions by the time of the Whitney retrospective in 1974. Due to extensive paint loss, the Institute had to decline the request for their loan for this exhibition. Ives-Stillman re-created with the artist the series in order to bring the works to a broader public. The portfolio is a tour-de-force of screenprint printmaking: each of the screenprints was made through hand-cut film stencils and displays the precision that had previously attracted artists such as Josef Albers and Ad Reinhardt to Ives-Stillman, Romare Bearden and Harry B. Henderson, Jr.