Activity Lecture
Host Moray House Trust
Date Saturday 7th November 2020
Time 5 pm GUYANA [4 pm Toronto, New York 9 pm UK]
Outline
The presentation discussed Savory’s quest to depict the unique essence of Guyana, through an examination of his life and career, his artwork, his place among Guyanese artists, and his contribution to Guyanese art and culture.
Footage: Ron Savory: a Guyanese quest
The Artist
Ronald Cecil Savory was an outstanding member of the second wave of Guyanese artists who emerged in the 1950s. He was a very active intellectual, who shared friendships with many of the leading lights of the young independent Guyana and helped to set the intellectual foundation for Guyana’s development. He was active in a number of fields, including broadcasting, theatre, and music. But he is most remembered for his ground-breaking paintings of the Guyana hinterland, which became his cherished subject and life-long passion. In his quest to find and express a unique “Guyaneseness”, Savory connected immediately and naturally to the vastness of the Guyana savannahs and the play of light and shadow in the Guyana jungle, which were so different from what he had been accustomed to on the coastland. The same quest connected him to the ideas of the emerging Guyanese and Caribbean writers, whose works he paid homage to through his paintings. He was stirred by the idea of the existence of pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas, and he explored this in many of his paintings. In Ron Savory, Guyana had an original, questing artist. In his final years, he lived in St Lucia, but the quest never left him.
The Presenter
Alim Hosein is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Language and Cultural Studies, University of Guyana. He lectures in Linguistics and has also lectured in Literature and Art. He has a longstanding interest in art and culture, publishing articles about Guyanese art in the respected Stabroek News for over thirty years. He has been a member of many national committees on cultural matters. He was a member of the Editorial Board of The Arts Journal from 2004-2008, and Editorial Advisor from 2009-2010; member of the Board of Management of the National Gallery of Art, Castellani House from 2012-2015, and was Chair of the Board from 2013 – 2015. He is a member of the Management Committee for the Guyana Prize for Literature, and he is also currently Chairman of the Guyana Visual Arts Competition and Exhibition (GVACE), Guyana’s national Art exhibition.