Major exhibitions at the National Gallery

- Contributed

Trench Town" painted in 1959 by David Pottinger (Source: "Modern Jamaican Art" by David Boxer and Veerle Poupeye).

Georgia Hemmings, Staff Reporter

TWO major exhibitions will open during the summer at the National Gallery of Jamaica (NGJ) in downtown Kingston.

The first is David Pottinger: A Retrospective, which is scheduled to open on Sunday, July 8 at 11:00 a.m. Guest speaker will be advertising executive Deryck Roberts, who is also an avid art collector and a personal friend of Mr. Pottinger.

The exhibition will be staged as a tribute to the veteran artist who turns 90 in September, and is expected to provide an in-depth overview of the work of this pioneer of modern Jamaican art.

Sixty paintings will be featured, including pieces from the National Collection. In fact, three of the paintings were recalled from the High Commission in London specifically for the purpose of the exhibition. They are Studley Park (1960), Walk Tall (1969), and The Faithful (1972).

Consultant curator Veerle Poupeye-Rammelare told The Sunday Gleaner last week that "These three paintings have been away from Jamaica for more than 20 years, so the retrospective will provide a first opportunity for many viewers to see these important works."

Other pieces in the show were loaned from various private collections.

The retrospective is expected to run until September 14, and, on September 13, a special ceremony will be held between 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. to celebrate Mr. Pottinger's birthday and the closing of the exhibition.

Mr. Pottinger started his artistic career in the 1940s when he participated in art classes at the Institute of Jamaica. He continued painting, even while doing full-time work in other endeavours.

Born in downtown Kingston, the artist is well-known for his urban and market scenes, and is widely regarded as a recorder of the city's life and the changes that time has wrought on the city.

Nowadays, Mr. Pottinger paints from the verandah of Malabre House on North Street in Kingston, where he has been allocated studio space under a special arrangement with the Institute of Jamaica.

The second exhibition at the gallery will be a travelling exhibition of Caribbean and Latin American art, organised by the Martiniquan Museum of the Arts of the Americas.

Spaces of the Americas, as it is titled, will open on Sunday July 15 at 11:00 a.m., and will run until October 8.

According to Mrs. Poupeye-Rammelare, the exhibition is "being brought to Jamaica through the auspices of the French Embassy here."

The works of some 49 artists are expected to be featured, and the exhibition will also travel to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Peru.

Meanwhile, other events on the gallery's calendar include an exhibition of the work of pioneer photographer Adolphe Duperly and his sons, planed for late September, and the Annual National Exhibition (ANE) in late December, which usually highlights current trends in Jamaican art.

The annual children's summer art workshop, Summer Art on the Waterfront, will start on July 9 and run through to August 10. It is being organised in association with the Multicare Foundation.

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