Background
Basil Barrington Watson was born in Lucea, Hanover, Jamaica, in 1931.
He was educated at the prestigious Royal College of Art in London.
He attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris.
Basil Barrington Watson was born in Lucea, Hanover, Jamaica, in 1931.
Barrington was educated at the prestigious Royal College of Art in London and attended several other major European art academies, including the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris and the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam.
Barrington returned to Jamaica in 1961 and quickly rose to prominence as a major artist in post-Independence Jamaica. Along with Eugene Hyde and Karl Parboosingh, he established the Contemporary Jamaican Artists’ Association in 1964 and he was from 1962 to 1966 the first Director of Studies at the Jamaica School of Art (now part of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts), where he introduced the full-time diploma programme.
He subsequently also acted as a visiting Professor at Spelman College in Atlanta. Barrington chaired the Bank of Jamaica art collection in the mid-1970s and operated several art galleries: Gallery Barrington, which has existed in several incarnations since 1974, and the Contemporary Art Centre, which was active from 1985 to 1998.
Barrington's home in the parish of St Thomas, Orange Park, is recognized as a heritage site. It is part of a former coffee plantation and it has since he bought the property in 1968, served as the location of his main studio and a meeting place for artists and art lovers. Barrington left Orange Park to the Nation in 1994.
Essentially an academic realist, Barrington explored a wide range of themes and genres in his work, including history painting, genre, portraits and self-portraits, nudes, erotica, the landscape and the still life, ranging from the intimate to the epic and all interpreted with his unique painterly sensibility. Barrington insisted on being recognized as an artist first and as a Jamaican artist second but most of his paintings were inspired by Jamaica and its people and he produced some of the most iconic images in Jamaican art history, such as Mother and Child (1958-59) and Conversation (1981) in the National Gallery of Jamaica Collection. Although he is best known as a painter, Barrington was also an accomplished draughtsman and printmaker.
Barrington executed several major commissions, including the mural The Garden Party (1975) and the installation Trust (1975, with Cecil Baugh) at the Bank of Jamaica, and the mural Our Heritage (1974) at Olympia in Kingston. He executed many official portraits, including those of past Prime Ministers of Jamaica, of Martin Luther King (1970) at Spelman College, and of former Commonwealth Secretary-General and UWI Chancellor Sir Shridath Ramphal at the University of the West Indies – Mona (1992) and Marlborough House in London (1995).
His work is well represented in the National Gallery of Jamaica Collection, with masterworks such as Mother and Child (1958-59), Washerwomen (1966), Athlete’s Nightmare II (1966), Conversation (1981) and Fishing Village (1996), and he is featured in many other public, corporate and private collections in Jamaica and internationally.
Barrington Watson served on the National Gallery Board for several years. He died on January 26, 2016 at the age of 85.
After School
Bob Marley
Broom Crew (From The Garden Party)
1976Buff Bay
Conversation
Fiona
Mother and Child
1959Mother & Child
Orange Park #2
Orange Park Landscape
Out of Many One People
1962Portrait of AD Scott 1969
Rt Excellent Sam Sharpe
1976Silver Palm
Sir Norman Washington Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica
1900Sketch of a Woman
1981Sketch of a Woman
1981Study drawing for Out of Many, One People 1962
Sunset at the Beach
Tamika
The Ethopian Woman
The Garden Party (detail)
1976The Hanging of George William Gordon
1968The Hibiscus
The Maroon Dance
Washer Women
1966Yallahs River #1
Yallahs River #2
Quotes from others about the person
The National Gallery’s Chairman, Mr Peter Reid, lauded Barrington for his outstanding contribution to the development of Jamaican art, as an eminent artist and art educator and as a role model to many artists in Jamaica, the Caribbean and the African diaspora. He stated “Barrington is a true national icon and we will treasure his artistic legacy for many generations to come.” The National Gallery’s Executive Director Dr Veerle Poupeye added: “Barrington Watson was a defining figure in post-Independence Jamaican art and his work reflects the spirit and imagination of Independent Jamaica. He was instrumental in the professionalization of the Jamaican art world and an outspoken and influential voice in the development of modern art in Jamaica.”
Barrington's wife was Doreen and they had five children: Janice, Raymond, Basil, Bright and Shauna-Kay.