Spencer Museum exhibition explores life and death of abolitionist John Brown

LAWRENCE — A new exhibition opening today at the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas explores the life and death of abolitionist John Brown as interpreted by acclaimed Black modernist Jacob Lawrence. “Jacob Lawrence and the Legend of John Brown” features a series of 22 prints created in 1974. This is the first time the Spencer Museum has displayed the series in its entirety since it was added to the collection in 2020 through a gift from Jeff and Mary Weinberg.

Lawrence’s series includes events from Brown’s time in Kansas, where he first used violence in his quest to rid the country of slavery. Rather than depict these violent attacks against slaveholders, Lawrence focuses instead on Brown’s fundraising and organizing for the abolitionist cause.

Kate Meyer, the Spencer Museum’s curator for works on paper, said that the Harlem Renaissance inspired Lawrence to choose important figures from Black history as subjects for his art. In addition to the John Brown series, Lawrence painted Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Lawrence is best known for his work depicting everyday life for Black Americans. In 1942, when segregation was still legal, he became the first African American whose artwork was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art.

Lawrence did extensive research on Brown at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library, drawing heavily from Franklin B. Sanborn’s “The Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas and Martyr of Virginia” (1885). Lawrence originally produced “The Legend of John Brown” as a series of paintings in 1941, but they became too fragile to display due to instability of the gouache paint he used. In 1974, he collaborated with printers to translate these paintings to screen prints. Meyer noted the historical moments connected to this series provide a fascinating lens through which to understand race and identity in the United States.

“Jacob Lawrence is reflecting on John Brown’s actions of the 1840s in 1941, during segregation. His paintings prove so powerful that he agrees to recreate the series as prints in the 1970s after the Civil Rights Movement. These images and stories about John Brown have remained relevant for well over a century, and their explorations of race, faith and violence remain so today,” Meyer said.

“Jacob Lawrence and the Legend of John Brown” will remain on view at the Spencer Museum in the Marshall Family Balcony through June 16. Admission to the Spencer Museum is free for everyone, and free parking is available on the first level of the Mississippi Street garage with validation at the museum’s welcome desk.

Related programming

Gallery Talk: “Jacob Lawrence and the Legend of John Brown”

Noon-1 p.m. March 20, Spencer Museum of Art

Curator Kate Meyer and graduate intern Claire Cox discuss the history and continued relevance of Jacob Lawrence’s prints depicting the life and death of abolitionist John Brown.
 

Q&A with John Brown

6:30–7:30 p.m. May 9, Spencer Museum of Art

Local John Brown impersonator Kerry Altenbernd visits the Spencer Museum on John Brown’s birthday to answer questions about the abolitionist’s time in Kansas, including events featured in the exhibition “Jacob Lawrence and the Legend of John Brown.”

Image: Jacob Lawrence, “John Brown, after long meditation, planned to fortify himself somewhere in the mountains of Virginia or Tennessee and there make raids on surrounding plantations, freeing slaves,” 1974-1977, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Museum purchase: Gift of Jeff and Mary Weinberg, 2020.0068.14.