The CARIFOLK Singers are among those to be honoured by the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ) for achievements in the fields of science, arts, and literature.
TWO ARTISTS are numbered among the 11 individuals and one cultural group to be honoured by the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ) for achievements in the fields of science, arts, and literature.
Veteran artist David 'Jack' Pottinger will be awarded the prestigious Musgrave gold medal, while intuitive artist, Brother Leonard Daley, will receive a bronze medal. Both artists are being honoured for their "continued excellence" in art.
Other persons to be honoured are Clement Dodd for work in the field of music (gold), Brian Heap for drama education (silver), Barringtom Moncrieffe for dance (silver), Herbert Repole for architecture (silver), Dr. Arnoldo Ventura for science (silver), Joan Tucker for music education (silver), Marilyn Brice-McDonald and David Reid for music (bronze), and the CARIFOLK Singers for music (silver).
The Musgrave Youth Award, which was inaugurated last year, will be presented to Chantal Ononaiwu for work in the field of law.
The 2002 Musgrave award ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday, December 4, in front of the IOJ building (which is situated at 10-16 East Street in downtown Kingston), starting at 3:00 p.m.
Mr. Pottinger, 91, is one of the last surviving representatives of that group of pioneering artists who in the post-1938 period, played an indelible role in the defining of a nationalist art in Jamaica.
Mr. Pottinger's life-work has been devoted to portraying life in urban Kingston - the streets and lanes, the sidewalks, buildings and backyards, and the parade of walking, jostling, cart-pushing, higglering, swaying-to-the-spirit neighbours that move, squat, lounge, hawk, haggle on the byways of the old city where he was born and continues to make his home.
Mr. Pottinger started his artistic career in the 1940s when he participated in art classes at the Institute of Jamaica. He was part of the original group of artists who studied under Edna Manley during the 1940s, a group which included Henry Daley, Ralph Campbell and, briefly, Albert Huie.
After attending art classes for awhile, he started travelling around the city with his sketch pad, doing drawings of buildings that appealed to him. He continued painting, even while doing work in other endeavours, before finally turning full-time to his craft.
Over the years, Mr. Pottinger has worked in different locations - first in a shop he rented as a studio, then on the sidewalk in front of the Ward Theatre downtown, and, finally, at Malabre House on North Street, the former site of the Jamaica School of Art.
He was awarded a Silver Musgrave Medal by the IOJ in 1987, and received the Order of Distinction from the Government the following year.
Mr. Daley is the most important intuitive artist to have surfaced since the National Gallery of Jamaica's groundbreaking exhibition "The Intuitive Eye" held in 1979.
He took part in the "Fifteen Intuitives" exhibition staged at the National Gallery in 1987, and since that time has participated in many international exhibitions. Locally, he has had solo exhibitions, while participating regularly in the National Gallery's Annual National Exhibition.
Meanwhile the organisers have announced that a feature of this year's Musgrave awards will be a mini-exhibition honouring five persons who were honoured in 1962, the year Jamaica became an Independent nation. This is being done in commemoration of Jamaica's 40th anniversary this year.
The five 1962 awardees were Lucille Iremonger, silver medallist for work done in the field of literature; Ivanhoe Williams, bronze medallist for photography; Richard Lewin, bronze medallist for contributions to local history; Helen Ormsby-Marshall, bronze medallist for literature, and Frances Goldsworthy, bronze medallist for library development.
The entertainment package at the ceremony will include the Blue Glades Band, Tivoli Marching Band, Hanover Street Basic School, and the junior centres' dancers and drummers.
