Barrington Watson
Basil Barrington Watson was a Jamaican painter.Biography
Born in 1931 in Lucea, Barrington Watson made his original mark in Jamaica as a football player for Kingston College. However, he ultimately followed his artistic yearnings by enrolling at the Royal College of Art in London. Watson also studied at Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris and the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam. He travelled widely and then returned to the first Director of Studies at the Jamaica School of Art and co-founded the Contemporary Jamaican Artists' Association. He later served as visiting professor at Spelman College, Atlanta. In 1967 he won a prize at the first Spanish Biennale at Barcelona. In 2000 he was awarded a Gold Musgrave Medal by the Institute of Jamaica.
Watson has exhibited throughout Jamaica and internationally. He is the father of sculptors Basil Watson and Raymond Watson. Watson is the subject of Lennie Little-White's 2015 documentary film They Call Me Barrington. He died on 26 January 2016 at the age of 85.Awards
- 1957 – British Council Scholarship
- 1958-9 – Jamaican Government Scholarship
- 1960 – German Government Scholarship
- 1960 – Dutch Government Scholarship
- 1961 – Jamaican Government Travel Scholarship
- 1967 – Special Award, Spanish Biennale – First Barcelona International Exhibition
- 1971 – Fulbright Professorship, Spelman College, Atlanta, GA
- 1974 – Gold Medal, Jamaica Festival
- 1980 – Centenary Medal, Institute of Jamaica
- 1984 – Commander of the Order of Distinction, C.D.
- 1984 – Prime Minister of Jamaica's Award for Excellence
- 1999 – Barrington Watson Day in Atlanta, GA
- 2000 – Gold Musgrave Medal
- 2001 – Citation, University of Technology, Jamaica
Notable works
- Spirit of Garvey, Oil/Canvas
- Pan-Africanists, Oil/Canvas, 1999
Portraits
- Marcus Garvey, Jamaica
- Fredrick Douglass, US
- C. L. R. James, Trinidad
- Harriet Tubman, US
- Kwame Nkrumah, Gold Coast
- W. E. B. Du Bois, US
- Julius Nyerere, Tanganyika
- Jomo Kenyatta, British East Africa
- George Padmore, Trinidad
- Haile Selassie I, Ethiopia
- Paul Robeson, US
- Malcolm X, US
- Rosa Parks, US
- Martin Luther King, Jr., US
- Muhammad Ali, US
- Patrice Lumumba, Republic of the Congo
- Norman Manley, Jamaica, which hangs in Rhodes House at Oxford University
Literary works
- Shades of Grey
- The Pan-Africanists
- Barrington
