CINCINNATI, OH .- Visitors to the Taft Museum of Art are having the rare opportunity to see The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture by Jacob Lawrence, one of the greatest American artists of the 20th century. Heroism in Paint: A Master Series by Jacob Lawrence is on view October 10, 2015–January 17, 2016. The series is on loan to the Taft from the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, and was a gift from the Harmon Foundation in 1982.

Lawrence became known around 1940 for several series of paintings, each of which recounted the life of a courageous hero of African descent who rose from slavery: the Haitian leader and liberator Toussaint L’Ouverture, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and the Underground Railroad “conductor” Harriet Tubman. Lawrence deliberately chose these heroes as subjects at a time when few Americans had ever heard of them.

The exhibition features forty-one tempera paintings that recount the dramatic story of Toussaint L’Ouverture, revered as the founding father of Haiti. The military hero L’Ouverture led the Haitian Revolution in the 1790s, creating the world’s first independent republic to be governed by descendants of former African slaves.

A leading artist of the Harlem Renaissance, Lawrence was influenced by Cubism and Expressionism. In this first of his famous narrative series, Lawrence’s personal style of geometric shapes and expressive colors lends an emotional edge to the sweeping tale of L’Ouverture and the Haitian wars of liberation.

"Jacob Lawrence’s works tell stories from African American history and contemporary urban life in such a passionate, direct manner that they communicate universal human experience," said Taft Director/CEO Deborah Emont Scott.

According to Lynne Ambrosini, Director of Collections and Exhibitions and Curator of European Art, Taft Museum of Art, “Although it illustrates the horrors of slavery and battle, the series is also a testament to the endurance of the human spirit forged during the struggle for freedom.”

Lawrence’s works are in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Phillips Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum.