...for freedom we want and will have, for we have served this cruel land long enuff... -a Georgia slave, 1810
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Depicting a brutal physical conflict between Black men and their oppressors, this painting represents the suppressed revolt planned by the enslaved Captain James to free populations between Greene County, Georgia, and Halifax County, North Carolina, in April 1810. Under ferocious attack, the central figure’s broad back, bearing gruesome scars from lashings, directly confronts the viewer. Lawrence derived the title caption from a letter written by James expressing his unrelenting desire to escape bondage and strike out for freedom. While the subject is ostensibly historical, the painting’s theme of racial strife resonated in the mid-1950s, during the nascent civil rights movement, when desegregation efforts were often met with violent resistance.
Artwork Details
- Title: ...for freedom we want and will have, for we have served this cruel land long enuff... -a Georgia slave, 1810
- Artist: Jacob Lawrence (American, Atlantic City, New Jersey 1917–2000 Seattle, Washington)
- Date: 1956
- Medium: Egg tempera on hardboard
- Dimensions: 12 × 16 in. (30.5 × 40.6 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Private Collection
- Rights and Reproduction: © 2022 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art