Edna manley artist biography

March 1,

Edna Manley was born to Harvey Swithenbank and Martha Elliot Shearer. Her father, a Wesleyan priest from Yorkshire in England, met Martha, who was a Jamaican of mixed descent, while he was on a tour of duty in Jamaica. They were married in Jamaica in Edna, the fifth of nine children, was born in England, where the family had moved after the birth of the first two children.

After leaving high school, Edna studied art at a number of English art institutions, including the prestigious St. Martin's School of Art in London. She also studied privately with Maurice Harding, the animal sculptor. In she married her cousin, Norman Manley, a Jamaican of mixed parentage and a Rhodes scholar studying law at Oxford University. After the birth of their first child, Douglas, they returned in to Jamaica, where a second son, Michael, was born in

Initially, Manley exhibited her London-made sculptures, but her work quickly evolved into personal observations of Jamaican life. Despite her European training and background, she immediately identified with the Jamaican environment and made conscious efforts to incorporate Negro-influenced forms into her work. Her first Jamaican masterpiece, The Beadseller, was produced in When she began making such sculptures as Negro Aroused (), Market Woman (), and Young Negro () and exhibiting them locally, she created her own brand of European modernism, a brand of vorticism, but she infused it with a definite Caribbean take and subject matter. Vorticism was a branch futurism, headlined by British artist Wyndham Lewis, a movement that incorporated dynamism and significant form in the art of sculpture. By the s Manley was concentrating on exhibiting and devoting her energies fully to Jamaica, although she still maintained connections with the London group, some of whom were members of the Bloomsbury Group.

Until the s there had been little interest in contemporary art in Jamaica. Manley belonged to a group of

Born, in Yorkshire, England. Died,

It is perhaps a measure of Edna Manley’s standing that as a white Jamaican artist of British birth and upbringing, she was included in the reference work, The St. James Guide to Black Artists. Manley occupies the pivotal position in the history of Jamaican Art, having arrived on the island in Jamaican art history by and large dates its birth from that year, making a sort of year zero, before which, apparently, no real Jamaican art was created or existed. In no small part, Manley’s status as a Mother of Jamaican Art is due to her familial connections. She was married to Norman Washington Manley; one of Jamaica’s National Heroes, who founded the left-leaning People’s National Party and led it for many years. A man of considerable achievement and vision, he served as Jamaica’s Chief Minister from to , and as its Premier from to , in which year the country won its independence. Edna Manley was, furthermore, the mother of another distinguished Jamaican, Michael Manley, who was twice Prime Minister of Jamaica ( – and – ). Such impeccable credentials and connections helped to ensure that Edna Manley’s work as a sculptor was very much part of the Jamaican project of nation building and the development of a distinct cultural identity, two agendas that to some extent went hand-in-hand from the early 20 century up to, and beyond, the year of Jamaica’s independence.

Manley’s work fused modernist sensibilities and aesthetics with what was at the time a revolutionary attachment to, or empathy for, the darker, labouring people of Jamaica; those of African stock. Manley’s singular depictions and renderings of these people emphasised their revolutionary potential, their folk culture, and their yearning for manhood, respect, and progress. In this regard, one of her key works was The Diggers, produced in the mid s, shortly before Jamaica erupted in an

Edna Swithenbank Manley, OM (28 February – 9 February ) is considered one of the most important artists and arts educators in Jamaica. She was known primarily as a sculptor, although her oeuvre included significant drawings and paintings. Her work forms an important part of the National Gallery of Jamaica's permanent collection, and can be viewed in other public institutions in Jamaica such as Bustamante Children's Hospital, the University of the West Indies, and the Kingston Parish Church.

Her early training was in the British neoclassical tradition.

Edna Manley was an early supporter of art education in Jamaica and in the s, she organised and taught art classes at the Junior Centre of the Institute of Jamaica. These classes developed in a more formal setting with the establishment of the Jamaica School of Art and Craft in , Jamaica's first Art School which would eventually expand into a college, and was renamed the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, in , to honour the artist's pioneering role in Jamaican Art.

Edna Manley was also the wife of Norman Manley, the founder of the Jamaican People's National Party and the 1st Premier of Jamaica. She is often considered the "mother of Jamaican art".

Edna Manley was a Jamaican artist, who primarily worked as a sculptor. Born in England in , her father was English and her mother a white Jamaican. Manley trained in art schools in London but spent most of her career in Jamaica, becoming one of the country's most significant artists whose work has left a long-lasting cultural and political imprint upon Jamaica.

Edna Manley with Rachel (), in London, Reproduced courtesy of ONYX and Dr. David Boxer.

When Manley was in her early twenties she married Norman Manley, who became Jamaican Premier in She moved to Jamaica in but travelled to and exhibited in many London-based shows during the interwar period. In she became a member of the Society of Women Artists and showed Beadseller (the first work she produced after moving to Jamaica). In she was elected to the London Group and in held her first solo show in Jamaica and then England.

During the s her work gave voice to her internal explorations of identity and politics, the latter a result of witnessing the struggles of Jamaican people for political, economic and social rights, which culminated in the strikes and the formation of the People's National Party, led by her husband Norman Manley.

Sculpture, politics and identity

Manley had a range of artistic and cultural inspirations including Ancient Egypt. As Basil Mcfarlane stated, Edna spoke 'of her interest, early and late, in the Mediterranean, sun-oriented, sun-drenched civilizations: in the arts of Egypt and Sumeria.' Her biographer Wayne Brown described her wood carving Wisdom as 'a monolithic, distinctly Egyptian-looking head.' Her work was also inspired by other modernist artists and, as Mary Lou Emery has stated, by the 'African diasporic present.' After her move to Jamaica, Manley's work became heavily influenced by the island's life and culture as well as Caribbean indigenous artworks.

Edna Manley, Negro Aroused, Reproduced courtesy of the Edna Manley Foundation. Imag