Background
Manley was born on March 1, 1900 in Bournemouth, United Kingdom; the daughter of Harvey Swithenbank and Ellie Shearer.
Edna and Norman Manley.
Manley was born on March 1, 1900 in Bournemouth, United Kingdom; the daughter of Harvey Swithenbank and Ellie Shearer.
Manley attended several art schools in a two-year period. She then studied privately with the artist Maurice Harding for a time and continued her art education at the Regent Street Polytechnic (nowadays University of Westminster) and the Saint Martin’s School of Art in London.
She received an honorary doctoral degree from the University of the West Indies in 1977.
Manley moved to Jamaica with her husband, Norman Manley, in 1922. From the very beginning of her life in Jamaica, Manley's art reflected a strong identification with Jamaica and its people. Her works "Beadseller" and "Listener" were first Jamaican sculpture completed just months after her arrival. In 1924, she made a number of portraits of friends and family members.
The second half of the 1920's was marked by a new development: the rigid geometrical forms of her Cubist phase gave way to bulbous, curvilinear shapes, which was in keeping with the monumental, neo-classicist trend. That period was represented such works as "Demeter", 1925, "Torso", 1926, "Adolescence", 1927, "Boy With Reed", 1928 and "Eve", 1929. Also in 1929 she had the first exhibition of her work in London at the Goupil Gallery. Her works were exhibited very frequently in England until the late 1950's
Her works "Beulah", 1933 and "Man With Wounded Bird", 1934, illustrated the stylistic and thematic developments of the 1930's period. She produced a new style and rounded forms were tamed by a geometrical structure reminiscent of the artist's cubist period, while themes continued to be highly symbolist with references to her personal life. The sculpture "Negro Aroused", 1935 was the first and most famous carving of the next phase of work which was most fully represented by "Prophet", 1935, "Pocomania", 1936, "Diggers", 1936, "Prayer", 1937 and "Strike", 1938. These works were intimately linked with the social and political developments of that time, the growth of Jamaican Nationalism and the Anti-Colonial Movement. Her first solo exhibition in Jamaica was in 1937.
Manley was closely involved in the political developments of the time and that was reflected in the optimistic, even ecstatic quality of the works "Mask", 1938, "Youth", 1938, "Sawyers", 1939 and "Idyll", 1939. The end of the decade coincided with the beginning of World War ll and the stringent social commentary which was seen in the drawings "Dispossessed", 1940 and "Study For Hunger", 1940 was soon replaced by a symbolic response through Biblical references. That period was illustrated by "Fiery Furflllce", 1940, "Father Forgive Them", 1940 and "Cain and Abel", 1940. Also in the 1940s Manley started free art classes for adults at the Junior Centre of the Institute of Jamaica and then at Jamaica School of Art (nowadays Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts).
Manley`s The Dying God cycle represented a move away from modernism and the social commentary of the previous period in favour of a highly personal, romantic symbolism. It was almost completely represented in the retrospective by such major works as "Foreruntur", 1941, "The Sun Goes Down", 1942, "New World, Old World", 1942, "The Generations", 1943, "Moon", 1943, "Horse of the Morning", 1943, "New Moon", 1944, "Morning", 1945, "The Land", 1941, "Night", 1948 and "Rising Sun", 1948. The Dying God cycle also marked the consolidation of a new stylistic development: less rigidly stylized, more realistic forms and an almost impressionistic surface treatment with visible chisel marks.
The 1950's and 1960's were a crucial period in the development of Manley's iconography, including "Growth", 1958 and "None but the Brave", 1960, "The Mountains", 1952 and the Earth Figure of "He Commeth Forth", 1962. Manley was also famous as an animal sculptor and she created such works as "Tyger", 1963, "Goat", 1963, drawings "Owl", 1961 and "Owl with Hand", 1961 were done as illustrations for Carmen Manley`s story, Land of Wood and Water.
In 1969, her husband died and Edna produced the tragic, intense works during the five years after her husband's death were all expressions of her grief and anguish. Already during Norman Manley's illness Edna had made sketches in which the image of Angel, 1970, the first of the mourning carvings, began to emerge. The works "Adios", 1971, "Phoenix", 1971, "Woman", 1971, "Faun", 1972, "Journey", 1974 and "Grief", 1974 were related to the death of Edna`s husband.
After "Journey", 1974, she decided to stop wood carving and focused instead on modeling and casting techniques, drawing and occasionally painting. The 1970's were among Manley's prolific years. The bronze relief, The Wave, 1977 presented a more liberal adaptation of the Expulsion theme. The theme of womanhood persisted in Manley's oeuvre and works such as "Market Woman", 1975, "Washerwoman", 1977 and "The Mountains", 1977.
Works such as "Jamaica 1976" revealed her concerns about the turmoil of the period, but the most dramatic example of social commentary in Manley's work was found in "Ghetto Mother", 1981, it was her response to the electoral violence of 1980. During the early 80's the artist also produced several sculptures depicting the typical Jamacian animal, the goat, among them: "Once Upon A Time", 1980, "Goat", 1984 and "Small Goat", 1984.
During her final years, Manley re-created several older works, including "Tomorrow", 1985 which was based on one of the major examples of the ecstatic carvings of the late 1930's. The ecstatic, spiritual atmosphere prevailed in most of Manley's last works and several ponder on the subject of death and rebirth. That was illustrated in such works as "The Listener", 1984, "Future", 1983, the painting "Birth", 1986 and the studies for "Raising of Lazarus" on which the artist was working until the day before her death.
Manley was a member of the Institute of Jamaica (nowadays National Gallery of Jamaica).
In 1921, Edna Manley married her cousin Norman Manley. They had 2 sons.