Happy (?) Jamaican Slaves via the Prints of Isaac Mendes Belisario

Isaac Mendes Belisario (1795-1849), has been described as the first documented Jamaican artist, but he was raised for a time in London, studied art and then worked as a stockbroker before returning Kingston, Jamaica, (a British colony) in the early 1830s. He became a well-known artist, painting landscapes and state portraits of important colonial residents, but he also made prints about the island’s local slave population. His work provides a rich description of Jamaican life at the time of the Emancipation, and while some of his observations seem one-sided according to today’s state of political correctness, they do enlighten us about slaves’ daily activities, and celebrations.

Belisario was a member of the Sephardic Jewish merchant class, who worked in retail, wholesaling, and dealt in the country’s slave trade. In 1831, Jamaica’s Assembly proclaimed the Jewish Emancipation Act, which allowed great freedoms for Jews versus the more restricted existence in London. One of Belisario’s distant relatives was briefly imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition in 1656, before escaping to London. The other side of his family were in the opera and performed for the King of Spain. Another relative, Isaac’s uncle Jacob, was an art dealer, stockbroker and participant in a huge embezzlement scheme of the day.

Born in Kingston in 1794, Belisario was named after his grandfather, the Rabbi Isaac Mendes Belisario (1719-1791), of the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London. One of the Rabbi's sons, Abraham Mendes Belisario came to Jamaica in 1786 where he was employed by Alexandre Lindo, who was one of the wealthiest Jews on the island. Abraham married Alexandre's daughter, Esther, and he was made a partner in Lindo's business, When faced with bankruptcy, Isaac Mendes Belisario's father left his family in London, looked for a job and soon found himself in the West Indies, in Tortola, where he became the manager of seven sugar plantations. He was horrified to see how cruelly the slaves were treated and eventually served on a jury of the first white man brought up on murder charges for killing a slave in Tortola. He wrote an unsuccessful report calling for protection for the treatment of Africans in the West Indies. In addition, the artist’s maternal grandfather was involved in the finances of the Haitian revolution.

In 1837-38, Belisario made a series of hand-colored prints based on a holiday carnival practiced for decades by slaves, called " Sketches of Character In Illustration of the Habits, Occupation and Costume of the Negro Population in the Island of Jamaica " they were accompanied with detailed ethnographic texts. Although slavery was abolished in Jamaica in 1833, these prints were very telling about the perception of the lives of slaves, both before and after emancipation, and they are still very popular in Jamaica.

In tracing the West African roots of Jonkonnu and its evolution in Jamaica, it had its origins with Jon Konny, a celebrated Nzema chief who ruled over Prince's Town in the 17th and 18th centuries in what is now Ghana. The Jonkonnu masquerades became very elaborate, as they incorporated the traditions of other African peoples and even some European carnival traditions. If anything, Jonkonnu was a leveller of slave society where the great Jamaican houses were opened up to the slaves who "drank with their masters and spoke with greater familiarity"; the distance between them briefly forgotten.

All the images represent happy, smiling slaves, well-dressed in theatre European style costumes with fancy wigs and jewelry. He felt the power of these fascinating carnival scenes of slaves. Some of these parades and competitions borrowed from Shakespeare characters. In a blend of carnival and east African dance traditions, the "Jack-in-Green" image at the bottom of this article, we find a barefoot figure in the center of the image, where an initiate’s body is completely hidden by a mask on its face and long vegetable fibers cover the body. Black women in European costumes dance about the covered figure like moths to a flame. Belisario also includes in these images a masked dancer, John Canoe, who was a chief of the village in the Gulf of Guinea, working in the 1720s.

Isaac M. Belisario was not a well man; suffering from tuberculosis. He seems to have never married; nor had any children, although he still has collateral descendents in Jamaica and Australia. His last documented print was produced in 1846, and he is known to have died in London three years later. A book about this artist’s enthralling past has recently been published.

Exhibitions:
Royal Academy
the Society for Painters in Oils and Water-Colours
His prints were produced working with the French printmaker Adolphe Duperly.

The Pride of Jamaica: Albert Huie

Jamaica's painter/printmaker Albert Huie - who died in 2010 at the age of 89, was a man truly in love with his work. He was born in the town of Falmouth, in Trelawny, and was a largely self-trained artist. Born into a poor family during colonial rule,  his grandmother was only person of his family who encouraged his artistic ambitions.

At 16 years of age, Huie moved to Kingston and took a position as a china painter.  His family wanted him to become a teacher so he began some formal art training with the Armenian painter Koren der Harootian. He then met and became a part of the circle of friends and acquaintances of sculptor  Edna Manley. She became one of Huie's first admirers and he later co-founded an art school with her called the Jamaica School of Art. He taught classes there from 1940-44.  

 In 1939, Huie's work was selected for two world art exhibitions, one at the New York World's Fair (he won a prize) and the San Francisco Golden Gate exhibition. He later exhibited his work in the United States, Canada, Cuba and England, including an exhibtion at  the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia.

Huie was more known as a painter, but he also did a series of relief prints. They are considered rare compared with the numbers of artworks he produced, but they are gemes of the local life in Jamaica and give us a glimpse into the story-telling world of the working-classes. Indeed, his black and white prints has been compared favorably with the Mexican muralist painter Diego Rivera, and they evoke a rhythmic, visceral passion for life.

 In 1943, Huie's  first major solo exhibition was at the Institute of Jamaica in Kingston, which was notable because it was the first solo show ever given there to any living Jamaican artist

Huie then went to the Ontario College of Art on a British Council Scholarship in 1944. He went on to study aesthetics at the University of Toronto.  Later that same decade,  he moved to Britain and studied at the Leicester College of Art, and the Camberwell School of Art in south-east London, were he studied under artists Victor Pasmore and Claude Rogers.

The National Gallery’s Chief Curator, Dr. David Boxer said,  “Albert Huie in these early days turned principally to portraits and to figure compositions which dealt with the everyday life of the average Jamaican. Baptismal scenes, the reaping of crops, market vending, washing by the river, all became subjects for his precocious talent.”

By the early 1950s, Huie’s style was fully developed. His work was relatively small in scale but it possessed an epic, monumental feel reminiscent of Diego Rivera’s murals.  His visual ties are also aligned with artists like Cortez, Millet, and Courbet in that he chooses to show the masses working together, although one doesn't sense the drudgery of the job as much as a comraderie of a team effort to complete a task.

Dr. Boxer also wrote, “Huie has subjected reality to  into a single composition showing a myriad of activities: growing sugar cane, hoeing, planting, reaping, dressing, sorting, bundling, and carting, all enacted against the almost Cubist backdrop of the sugar factory.”

The only thing that seemed a slight to Huie's artistic dominance in Jamaica was that the intellectual elite of his own countrymen had turned away from the type of art ne produced in favor of the untutored, Rastafarian-influenced artists, whose work resembles Haitian voodoo imagery. These were thought to be more representative of Jamaican sensibilities  linking themselves with African their African roots.

In spite of that, Huie was often described as the father of Jamaican art. He produced folkloric simplified compositions, showing his love of Jamaica's rich landscape and its beautiful people. His legacy is still growing and we can only hope the people of Jamaica and the world continue to embrace his rhythmic and sincere depictions of the working class.

Huie 's genial personality was much loved and he was always celebrated whenever he returned to Jamaica.


Awards:
The Institute of Jamaica, Silver Musgrave medal -1958
The Institute of Jamaica, Gold Musgrave medal -1976
The Order of Distinction -1983
Commander of the Order of Distinction -1992
Jamaican postage stamp, "The Vendor"

The Fun and Funk Printmaker: Estonia's Tarrvi Laamann

Oh my, there's somethin'  happenin' in Tarrvi Laamann's work. On first glance, Laamann's bold colors appear not too carefully printed, maybe leaving the purists of this medium a little cold, but really folks, there is something in the way his 'doesn't care' about the limitations that sometimes come with tradition that is engaging. There's an absolute respect for the medium he's chosen to work with, but also a break with tradition which is a welcome breath of fresh air. He may or may not be aware of the visual lineage with German Expressionist prints, but he doesn't mind overlapping blocks to create a more complete final impression. This print above with the classic stare of a sensual woman inter-spliced between erotic fronds is arresting. The viewer's eye glances over the colors, but clearly returns to the woman's gaze. Simply done, the vertical lines which break up the space open the space surrounding her to dimensions of time. 

Laamann's latest images juxtapose a sort of rendered portrait of a familiar figure with loud, linear over-printings that jar the senses. The vibrations created with these off-set printed backgrounds throw off any sensibility for order. The portraits are the only anchor in this work of fun and funk. They are brash and evocatively remind us of music  - in Laamann's case it is reggae, but I also hear and see the evocations of a distant Arthur Dove painting interspersed. 

The raw and sensual rhythms pulsating throughout Laamann's work make me interested to see what's happening beyond these shimmering 'glimpses' he's provided us. There's more to the story, as one would find Asian art. We know there's more around the corner of the composition he's given us, but he's chosen to show us only a snippet of the main event - as Chinese and Japanese paintings and woodblock prints allude to. The image below shows us a catwalker with the music blaring in the background. Surely there is more for us to see, but he's given us the prime target for our viewing pleasure. What more could one want?

The following two images are  nicely composed and we get a nice dose of divinely endowed religious homage (with God's blessings via sun rays)and tropical gaming chance via sunny palm trees and dominoes. 

Laamann's examination of popular culture icons, like Shakespeare and Eva Peron (below), harken to Andy Warhol's similarly-themed series of pop icons of the 60's. In this case, Laamann broadens the reaches of his cultural interests and yet he places a humorous slant to Shakespeare's case where Hamlet's skull gets to go along on a tropical holiday. 

. And Peron's glamorous portrait set starkly against the abstracted musical strains of Evita blaring overhead is inspired.

Lastly, Laamann's interest in music and DJ-ing are a part of his personal interests, and so the wonderfully simplified image of records and vinyl ensues and we are transplanted to the era of Jamaican Bob Marley & the Wailers' tunes and sunny shores. 

These images seem out of character for an artist living and working in Estonia. We western artists think mostly of Estonia as being one of the former eastern block republics that were once a part of the dismantled USSR, but in truth Estonia has always been culturally and artistically a little on the rebellious side. It may have something to do with the location of Estonia having access to several western countries. They have been a much-maligned and fought over territory between the east and west for centuries, but in 1991 Estonia re-gained its independence and joined the EU in 2004. Artists like Laamann have enjoyed a fair amount of celebrity within the region and Scandinavian territories, but their visibility to the outside artistic community is still a far cry from where it should be. I am encouraged by the bravado of Laamann's work, and look forward to seeing its migration to the global artistic arena. 

Education:
1994-1998 Estonian Art Academy (graphics)
1998-2000 Estonian Art Academy (MFA)
2001-2001 ”Professional Skills for Instructors” IATA (Geneva)

Teaching:
2000- 2006 Tartu Art College (department of General Subjects teacher)
2007- 2008 Estonian Art Academy (Teacher of composition)
2010-xxxx Estonian Art Academy (Teacher of woodcut printing)
2011-xxxx Tartu Art College (Teacher of woodcut printing)

Exhibitions (selected):
1995 ”Etching” Olavi Gallery, Tallinn, Estonia
1996 ”Kümme Härga” Raatuse Gallery, Tallinn, Estonia
1997 Art Academy Gallery, Helsinki, Finland
1997 ”Tarrvi Laamann-s Revelation” Estonian National Library, Estonia
1998 ”Young Estonian Paintings” Nõmme Cinema, Tallinn, Estonia
1998 Porvoo Art Hall, Finland
1998 Sammas Gallery, Tallinn, Estonia
1998 ”International Midigraphics”, Pärnu
1999 Estonian Art Museum ”Pühamu”, Tallinn, Estonia
1999 Bolivar Art Gallery, Jamaika
2000 ”Dream of The Provincial Girl”, Sopot, Poland
2004 ”Laamann-s Juju” Tallinn City Gallery & Pärnu Art Gallery, Estonia
2009 ”Laamann-s Caribbean Juju”, Viimsi Sea Museum, Tallinn, Estonia
2009 ”Inernational Portraits”, IBL Art Gallery, Mauritius
2010 The 5th International Rokycanske Biennial in Graphic Arts, Czech Rep
2011 ”Laamann-s Abstrakt Juju”, Genialists club gallery, Tartu, Estonia
2011 ”Estonian Contemporary Printmaking, Eduard Wiiralt 2011” Tallinn, Estonia
2011 ”Ketju-Chain” Joellan gallery, Turku, Finland
2011 “Xylographie” Viljandi, Estonia
2011 “Juju” Helsinki, Finland
2011 ”Loovala Küllus” Estonia
2012 ”Ksülograafia & Tarrvism” Narva Muuseumi Kunstigalerii, Estonia
2012 ”Graphica Creativa 2012” Jyväskylä, Finland
2012 ”Muster” Von Krahli Galerii, Tallinn, Estonia

Books:
1997 ”Revelation Book” from Bible
2010 ”Lauldud sõna”, Veljo Tormis

Public Collections:
Estonian National Library, Estonia
Washington D.C. Congress Library, USA
Jamaican National Library, Jamaica
Estonian Art Academy Library, Estonia
Matti Miilius Collection

Awards:
Estonian Art Academy
Estonian National Culture Fund
Rokycanske Biennial 

Memberships:

Estonian Artist Association

Estograph - The Association of Estonian Printmakers

Contact:
address:  ”Raadio 2”, Gonsiori 21, 15020 Tallinn, Eesti
phone: +37 256 210 511
e-mail: tarrvi@gmail.com
www: www.Laamann.ee

http://estograph.ee/kunstnikud/