Caribbean Artists A-Z

Judy Ann MacMillan is one of Jamaica’s foremost academic painters. Born in Kingston but trained in Scotland she brings to her work a unique synthesis of technical ability and subjective intimacy that only a Caribbean artist can achieve.

Returning from her studies in Europe, in the early 1970s Judy MacMillan began to establish a name for herself amongst collectors and patrons alike as she undertook a series of portrait commissions. Her keen sense of observation, classical…

Born in Yorkshire England, Edna Manley’s mother was Jamaican, from the prominent Shearer family. In 1936 she met her cousin Norman Manley who had come to England as a Rhodes scholar to study at Oxford. He was later conscripted and fought in WW1, while Edna studied at St Martin’s School of Art. They married in 1922 and moved to Jamaica where Edna was to pursue her career as a sculptor creating images that reflected Jamaica’s struggle for nationhood. During the 1930’s Edna Manley continued to…

Marriot was born into an artistic family, his mother was a musician and writer while his father made and sold straw items. From an early age, encouraged to explore his own creativity, he developed an interest in wood and earned his earliest commissions when he was still a teenager. After completing school, he apprenticed as a furniture maker. His skills gained him employment locally working with Art Deco furniture designer Burnett Webster executing custom furniture, and then abroad, first as…

Born in rural St Thomas, McLaren went as far as the 6th grade in primary school, then left to take up an apprenticeship in coach building. At the turn of the century this would have been a viable profession but with the introduction of the motor car after the 1920’s McLaren’s skills became redundant.

For the next few years he did casual work but then returned to farming on his father’s land in St Thomas. His interest in painting developed out of a need to do more and he surprised…

Bryan McFarlane was born in Moore Town, Portland, a place renowned for its heritage and the Maroons from whom he claims descent. As a result, history and identity are important themes in his work. His understanding of his own ancestry is paralleled with an interest in the diversity of the world's cultures and fuelled by his extensive travels that since his graduation…

David Miller Jnr’s relationship with his father David Miller Jnr was crucial to his development as and artists, and it is rare that one is mentioned without the other, despite their stylistic differences. David Miller was apprenticed to his father in their carpentry business established on Bray Street of Windward Rd. They regularly did trades work for the house building business, but when that was slow, they wood create carvings for sale to the tourists that normally docked at Kingston…

Its unusual to speak about David Miller, the father without also mentioning his son of the same name. As carpenters and curio craftsmen they worked together, initially with David the son being an apprentice too his father. Regularly exhibited together, their works are conceptually similar, but stylistically very different.

Initially, the Millers created carvings for Jamaica’s growing tourist industry. They operated a workshop on Bray Street off Windwards Rd where in addition to…

Whitney Miller was among the earliest  batch of students who attended the Jamaica School of Art and Crafts during the 1950s, and he graduated in 1963 as one of the first students to receive a diploma. Initially, he wanted to be a sculptor  and was taught and encouraged by the late Edna Manley, but eventually he developed into a painter of figure compositions…