BOSCOE HOLDER, GEOFFREY HOLDER

A special preview for London Gallery Weekend takes place on Friday 31 May, 10am–6pm. Additionally, the gallery will be open on Sunday 2 June, 11am–4pm.

Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Boscoe and Geoffrey Holder were true polymaths whose groundbreaking careers in the visual and performing arts led them individually to the UK, where Boscoe settled in 1950, and the US, where Geoffrey made his home in 1953, and wider international acclaim. Throughout their careers, both regarded the impulse to paint as being intrinsic to their broader creative drive, an embodied painting informed by and informing their accomplishments as choreographers and performers.

On view across the two spaces of our London gallery, these exhibitions consider for the first time the siblings as painters in parallel. Created in New York from the late-1970s into the 2000s, selected works by Geoffrey move from the quiet intimacy of domestic scenes to the lively energy of nightclubs. Equally tender and strong, these paintings display his deeply intuitive understanding of colour, used powerfully to describe emotion as much as form. Works by Boscoe are drawn principally from the 1990s, made in Trinidad where he resettled in 1970. A focus of these paintings, characterised by their quiet intensity, is the male nude, a significant aspect of Boscoe’s work though one that was rarely exhibited during his lifetime.

Together the exhibitions draw connections and invite conversations around expression, representation and style, the similarities and contrasts of brothers who, sharing creative passions, remained distinct though equally compelling characters throughout their lives.

New writing by Trinidad-born writer Attillah Springer accompanies the exhibitions.

The Geoffrey Holder exhibition is presented in collaboration with James Fuentes and the Geoffrey Holder Estate.

The Boscoe Holder exhibition is presented with thanks to Christian Holder, Executor of the Boscoe Holder Estate.

Press release courtesy Victoria Miro