Hinkson memoir a portrait of bygone era

One must, perforce, respect the desire of the writer to remain anonymous; however, to give credit where credit is due while acknowledging the rapport that must exist between the writer and the source, this co-production (to borrow a term from the theatre) is a book to interest not only those practising, collecting and admiring the visual arts, but the everyday reader as well.

The book is a portrait of times gone by, of the ending of the colonial era and the beginnings of Independence, of the changing landscape of Port-of-Spain from family homes to offices, stores, showrooms, warehouses. And, of course, the people – of Peter Minshall – and others – as schoolboys in QRC and as young men just beginning their careers.

We see how the emerging artist viewed these changes, these people, rich, poor and in between. In these pages we meet the great names of art in TT in past decades, Sibyl Atteck, Leo Basso, M P Alladin, James Boodoo, Carlisle Chang, Pat Chu Foon who, in their various chosen genres, painted Trinidad and Tobago as it was, and Trinidadians and Tobagonians, as they saw them.

This is a very personal Memoir; Hinkson’s mother is always referred to as “Mummy” his father as “Daddy”. We get a boy’s eye view of Richmond Street Boys EC in the early ’50s, his exhibition scholarship to QRC, introduction to and delight in literature and languages. Although we get no mention of drawing or painting until Hinkson was in his third or fourth year in QRC, the gift, the talent appears in this Memoir from early childhood in the seeing eye, observing, admiring the beauty of the Sacred Heart Church.

So many native sons and daughters of these soils go abroad to study and never come back except for family visits at Christmas and Carnival but Jackie Hinkson was not one of them.

Much as he admired the architecture, stood in wonder and astonishment before the original paintings of the Great Masters in museums and art galleries during his year in Paris (thanks to a scholarship through the Alliance Fran?aise), he knew his roots, his inspiration to be here in the Caribbean. That feeling was reinforced after five years’ study in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. His heart, his soul belongs here in the brilliance and heat of the sun, the power of the rains, the vibrant colours of the tropics.

Throughout the book we get some vague idea of what it’s like to see this country, this capital city with the artist’s eye – an artist who respects the past, who bases his work solidly in drawing, sketching, catching the fleeting moment in watercolours and showing both the good and the ugly in the extraordinary, at times unsettling series of oils that (to my mind) is his woefully neglected master work – “Christ in Trinidad”.

The writing of this memoir carries the reader on from one chapter to the next. I confess that for an entire afternoon I completely neglected an important piece about seagrass I’d been intending to write because I couldn’t tear myself away, literally wouldn’t, rather than couldn’t, put this book down. It was only due to the fact that I had a dinner date with my son that prevented me from reading the rest of the book that night.

And if that’s not a recommendation for Newsday readers to buy their own copy, – better still buy two or three to send as Christmas presents to homesick Trinidadians and Tobagonians in colder climes than these, I don’t know what is.

You can buy your copy of Jackie Hinkson, What Things Are True – A Memoir Of Becoming An Artist at Paper Based in the Normandie, The Readers’ Bookshop on the corner of Middle and Patna Street (just one block west of Long Circular Mall) and the UWI Bookshop.