Jamaican Art

After exploring the early evolution of Caymanian art history in the seminal exhibition Our Story of Art, the exhibition at the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands (NGCI) — Jamaican Art: 1960s & 1970s — examined the concurrent developments in the art of our closest neighbour.

This period of Jamaican history was a time of dramatic social and cultural change in which notions of nationhood were actively explored, and challenged, in local cultural production. The artists of the mid-twentieth century nationalist school, such as Edna Manley, Alvin Marriott, Albert Huie, and David Pottinger, continued to build on their original interests with moderately modernist depictions of iconic local subject matter. However, they also responded to the cultural and artistic changes that took place around them, as evidenced by the introduction of abstraction which pushed their work in new directions. Similar developments could be seen in the work of artists who had emerged in the periphery of the nationalist school, such as Carl Abrahams and Gloria Escoffery, both of whom found their unique artistic voice in the post-Independence period and added to the growing diversity of Jamaican art.

35 works — on loan from the National Gallery of Jamaica (NGJ) and local collections — were displayed and curated by NGJ Director Dr Veerle Poupeye and Acting Senior Curator O’Neil Lawrence. The exhibition included work in a variety of media, styles and genres, and by both formally trained and self-taught artists, including some well-known masterpieces by artists such as Edna Manley, Alvin Marriott, Christopher Gonzalez, Albert Huie, Barrington Watson, Osmond Watson, Carl Abrahams, Kapo, David Pottinger, along with other works that were of equal quality and significance but have not received the same level of exposure.

“The National Gallery of the Cayman Islands is delighted to host Jamaican Art: 1960s & 1970s from the collection of the National Gallery of Jamaica,” said NGCI Director Natalie Urquhart. “This exhibition marks an important international collaboration between NGCI and NGJ, and it is an opportunity to reflect and celebrate the long-standing social, cultural, and economic relationships between our two countries.”

The exhibition was made possible by the following: Ministry of Health, Youth, Sports and Culture; The Jamaican Consulate; Cayman Airways Cargo; StaMar; Holiday Inn Resort Grand Cayman; Andy’s Rent-A-Car; Massive, and Mise en Place.