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Museum object · Visual Arts

No. 2 For 40 years, John Brown reflected on the hopeless and miserable condition of the slaves.

1977

New Haven, New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, North and Central America

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Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A screen print from the series “The Legend of John Brown” by Jacob Lawrence. The print depicts John Brown at the center, seated at the head of a table and praying with five other people. A book, presumably the Bible, lays at the center. Everyone has their heads down, with Brown’s hands interlaced with one another. They are all dressed in black, with one woman in the bottom left corner with a light blue laced shirt. Behind Brown, on the wall, are four black rifles hanging from long, yellow nails and three machetes. A window to the proper left of Brown shows a single bare tree with a light blue sky and light green grass. On the front of the print, the artist wrote the series number and edition in the lower left corner [#2 51/60] and signed and dated in the lower right corner [Jacob Lawrence 1977].

Sources & collection details

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture — original record ↗

Source collection ↗

Catalog metadata · CC0 · Source checked 2026-10-13

Catalog reference: 2007.6.1.2

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