Background
Boscoe Holder was born on July 16, 1921 Trinidad and Tobagoin Trinidad to Louise de Frense and Arthur Holder from Barbados, Boscoe Holder was the eldest of five children.
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Directed by Basil Dearden. With Nigel Patrick, Yvonne Mitchell, Michael Craig, Paul Massie. The murder of a young woman in London exposes deep racial tensions and prejudices inherent in the area.
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Boscoe Holder was born on July 16, 1921 Trinidad and Tobagoin Trinidad to Louise de Frense and Arthur Holder from Barbados, Boscoe Holder was the eldest of five children.
He attended Tranquility Intermediate School and Queen's Royal College. He started a musical career at a young age, playing the piano professionally for rich French creole, Portuguese and Chinese families. In his teens he began painting seriously. He was an early member of the Trinidad Art Society, along with people such as Ivy Hochoy, Hugh Stollmeyer and Amy Leon Pang. He credits his parents as instrumental in nurturing his artistic inclinations at a time where it was uncommon for a Trinidadian child to pursue such aspirations. Holder started painting when he was in his teens. His first exhibition, at one of the fish markets in Woodbrock, Tiinidad, took place in 1937.
During his adolescence, Holder made a successful incursion into the world of musical entertainment. A talented artist who played the piano at selected parties to raise money to buy art supplies, he founded the Boscoe Holder's Dance O'Trinidad company during the 1930s. His troupe played an important role in the early history of Trinidad's music because he recognized the value of the popular cultural art forms generated by the Trinidadian people and used them as part of his dance routines. For instance, he took elements of an African funeral ritual called the Limbo and created a new popular dance with it. Most people know the Limbo as a dance where people dance backwards and go underneath a stick of wood while accompanied by lively percussion beats. In the same way, his dance company recognized the value of the steel pan and calypso music and used it to orchestrate their artistic performances and to develop choreographies specially tailored around its music. His company, in fact, was the first to bring the steel pan to New York.
Like many other Trinidadian and Caribbean artists, Holder left Trinidad during the early 1950s in an attempt to expand his career and seek new horizons. He first traveled to New York and then went on to Europe, where he was credited with helping introduce both calypso music and the steel pan. He performed as a dancer at the most prestigious clubs in London and France, and also performed alongside many other famous dancers, including African American singer and dancer Josephine Baker.
In April 1950 Boscoe with his wife and son went to live in London, which became their home for the next two decades, their circle of friends including Oliver Messel and Noël Coward. Holder formed a group by the name of Boscoe Holder and his Caribbean Dancers, and introduced the first steel drums to England on his own television show, Bal Creole, broadcast on BBC Television on 30 June 1950. Holder also choreographed and appeared in the 1953 BBC Television production The Emperor Jones (based on the Eugene O'Neill play of the same title).
The dance company toured all over Europe and further afield (Finland, Sweden, Belgium, France, Spain, former Czechoslovakia, Italy, Monte Carlo and Egypt), and in 1953 performed at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, representing the West Indies. Holder and his wife appeared again before the Queen in 1955, at a Command Performance at Windsor Castle.
On 31 July 1955, Holder and his troupe appeared in a concert billed as "The First Caribbean Carnival in London" held at the Royal Albert Hall, sponsored by entrepreneur Hugh Scotland. In January 1959, the Boscoe Holder dance troupe was a headline act, performing "Carnival Fantasia", at the "Caribbean Carnival" organised by Claudia Jones held in St Pancras Town Hall.
From 1959, for four years, Holder produced, choreographed and costumed the floorshow in the Candlelight Room of The May Fair hotel, where he also formed and led his own band, The Pinkerton Boys, who alternated there with Harry Roy's orchestra. Holder later co-owned a private club called the Hay Hill in Mayfair. He appeared in several films, including Sapphire (1959), and in television series such as Danger Man and The Saint. He also danced in Nice, Monte Carlo, and Paris with Josephine Baker. On a visit to Trinidad in December 1960, Holder with his wife Sheila Clarke put on a show entitled At Home and Abroad at Queen's Hall in Port of Spain, performed by local dancers and featuring dances based on Brazilian, Haitian and Trinidadian folklore.
As well as dancing, during these years Holder continued to paint and his work was exhibited at various UK galleries including the Trafford Gallery, the Redfern Gallery, the Commonwealth Institute, the Castle Museum Nottingham, the Martell exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture at the Royal Watercolour Society Galleries, and the Leicester Galleries.
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Part of the significance of his work is not only its superb technical quality but also the fact that Holder was one of the first Caribbean painters to use and recognize the beauty and cultural elements of his native Trinidad and incorporate them into his paintings. He has devoted a lifelong career to painting that focuses on the Caribbean and Trinidadian native cultural elements and in the black women and forms that inhabit these islands. He has said: "I love painting Caribbean people, especially the women, because they are so decorative. I capture all of the Carib-bean in my work, the poverty, the strong black theme, the nature, and the beauty".
He is also a noted sculptor who has sculpted since the begin-ning of his career. One of his first sculptures, which he still owns, is a bust of Barbadian author George Lamming when he was young and still living in Trinidad. Holder's work is seen as one of the prime examples of Caribbean painters and artists using the symbols and cultural products of their African ancestors to inspire their artistic production and at the same time to validate their cultures and physical landscape.
