Edna Manley
Encyclopedia
Edna Manley OM
(March 1, 1900 – February 2, 1987) was a sculptor and contributor to Jamaican culture, as well as the wife of Norman Manley
, the founder of the Jamaican People's National Party
. She is often considered the "mother of Jamaican art". She is the daughter of English cleric Harvey Swithenbank and a Jamaican woman by the name of Ellie Shearer. Her father died when Edna was nine, leaving her mother to raise nine children on her own. As the middle child, Edna Manley was highly independent and spirited. She once attended several art schools in a two-year period, although she sensed that these schools were incredibly limited in what they offered in their curriculum. Edna eventually married Manley (who was her Jamaican cousin) in 1921, and eventually moved with him from England to Jamaica in 1922. The couple had two children, Michael Manley
(who was to become a union activist and the eventual prime minister
, succeeding his father Norman) and Douglas Manley, a sociologist and minister in his brother's government.
, at the Regent Street Polytechnic
as well as the St. Micheal's School of Art in London
.
back in London, and her work took on a more "inspired formal elegance", according to Boxer. Manley's materials consisted mostly of native woods—she used yacka, mahogany
, Guatemalan redwood, juniper cedar, and primavera. Some of the work dating from her first year on the island are "Beadseller", and "Listener". In describing "Beadseller", Boxer said, "It was as if in one fell swoop, nearly a hundred years of sculptural development had been bridged: in this, her first work done in Jamaica, Edna seems to have given expression to her ideas about contemporary British sculpture with which she had saturated herself prior to leaving England." Both pieces exhibited Manley's more progressive and cubist style.
Between 1925 and 1929, Manley softened some of her geometric forms, replacing them with more massive, rounded ones. Her son Michael was born during this time. "Market Women", a study of two voluptuous women sitting back to back, and "Demeter
", a carving of the mythical Earth Mother, are indicative of Manley's late-1920s influence. The 1930s saw another change in her sculptural style. She tamed her early-1920s cubist lines with rounder influences, and produced a new, definitive style that lasted into the 1940s.
Jamaica was facing many political changes during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Members of the African diaspora
were looking to do away with the aging colonial system that remained on the island. They were ready for a new social order, and voiced their displeasure with the colonial system by incurring strikes (along with riots), instigating food shortages, and promoting protest marches. Manley's work of the time reflected this civil unrest. Works like "Prophet", "Diggers", "Pocomania", and "Negro Aroused" "caught the inner spirit of our people and flung their rapidly rising resentment of the stagnant colonial order into vivid, appropriate sculptural forms," wrote poet M. G. Smith.
Her works were exhibited frequently in England between 1927 and 1980. Her first solo exhibition in Jamaica was in 1937. The show marked a turning point in Jamaica's undeveloped art movement, and it prompted the first island-wide group show of Jamaican artists. Manley was also one of the founders of the new Jamaica School of Art. After premiering in Jamaica, her show opened in England, where it was received with much fanfare. It was the last time Manley's work would be shown in London for nearly 40 years.
Active for much of her life as an artist, she also taught at the Jamaica School of Art, now a component of the Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts
.
'negro aroused the art piece'=
While she was at London, Manley had discovered that the people of Jamaica had collected the money to buy her piece "Negro Aroused". Individuals pitched in whatever they could afford, purchasing the piece to begin a national art collection. She was highly moved by this act, partly because she claimed that it was such a difficult piece for her to create: "Negro Aroused,...was trying to create a national vision, and it nearly killed me, it was trying to put something into being that was bigger than myself and almost other than myself," Manley told Sculpture Review
.
The original sculpture of "Negro Aroused" was created in 1935 and was first exhibited in 1937. From its exposure, "Negro Aroused" excited the public's imagination, acquired by public subscription and presented to the Institute of Jamaica to form a nucleus for an upcoming exhibition.
In 1977, work began to enlarge the sculpture and to create a monument to the workers of Jamaica and the Worker's Movement which was born in 1938. Edna Manley was commissioned to recreate the work in bronze, at a scale three to four times that of the original. She was assisted by several young sculptors. Prior to its shipment to New York for bronzing, the seven-foot version was destroyed in a warehouse fire.
In 1982, Manley produced a third version, closer in size to the original, but it incorporated some of the subtle changes she had introduced in the destroyed sculpture.
In 1991, the sculpture was posthumously enlarged by utilizing the "scaling up" technique of bronze foundries for the enlargement of a sculpture. The third version was selected because it was closer in size to the destroyed version. The cost was met by public subscription.
in 1938. Although Edna Manley was hesitant at first, she quickly accepted her husband's place—and her own—in Jamaican politics. She also designed The Rising Sun logo for the People's National Party. The beginning of Jamaica's new government-—and the fall of colonialism-—was reflected in Manley's work, which at the time dealt with the cyclical, birth-and-death themes of the sun and moon. Her work was also heavily influenced by the nature that surrounded her at Nomdmi, the mountain retreat she had built with her husband.
The 1950s and 1960s were quiet times for Manley as an artist. Her husband became more involved with politics, becoming the chief minister
of Jamaica in 1955. Manley's responsibilities as the wife of a politician left little time for art. In 1965, she created a statue of Paul Bogle
to commemorate his partaking in Jamaica's Morant Bay Rebellion
. The statue was highly controversial because it was inherently the very first Jamaican public statue that depicted a black man. Manley also returned, in her personal carvings, to the animal sculptures that she did as a young woman.
In 1969, Edna's husband (Norman Manley) had been laid to rest. He had helped Jamaica to achieve total independence from Britain and self government by 1962. Manley's carvings during this period were very personal—-reflections on her husband's death, her pain, and sense of loss. She retreated to the mountains and created "Adios," a piece interpreted as lovers in a last embrace, and "Woman," an agonized woman in reclusion. The end of this grieving period was marked by her creation of the triumphant "Mountain Women". She had accepted the loss of her husband. "I felt that because my roots were here in Jamaica, I could survive," she told Americas. "It was my return to the world after that period of intense grief."
After creating several more profound carvings, including "Faun," "Message," and "Journey," Manley gave her carving tools away to a young Jamaican sculptor and declared that she would never work with wood again. Instead, she worked with modeled terracotta or plaster casts. During the 1970s, the major themes of Manley's work were expressions of her "grandmother," or "old woman" image, of matriarchal society, and memories of her life with her husband Norman.
Manley continued to sculpt until her death in 1987. Although a great deal of her work was intensely personal, she created a body of sculpture that embodies Jamaican culture and spirit. English novelist Sir Hugh Walpole, a collector of her work, spoke at the opening of her 1937 London show. "There is a very strange and curious spirit there and Mrs. Manley has got within that strange spirit," he remarked. "There is in Jamaica a beauty that finds its expression through her, that comes partly from the Jamaican material she uses, partly from her own individuality, and partly also, I think, from the sort of sense of beauty that the different people of Jamaica themselves possess." For Manley, expressing the beauty of Jamaica was second nature. "I carve as a Jamaican for Jamaica," she told Americas, "trying to understand our problems and living near to the heart of our people."
, for apart from the fact that she was related to a national hero (husband Norman Manley
) her contribution to Jamaica's art has earned her the unofficial title of "Mother of Jamaican Art".
Jamaican Order of Merit
The Order of Merit is part of the Jamaican honours system and is the third highest honour conferred by the nation of Jamaica. The Order of Merit is conferred upon Jamaicans or on distinguished citizen of another country who has achieved eminent international distinction in the field of science,...
(March 1, 1900 – February 2, 1987) was a sculptor and contributor to Jamaican culture, as well as the wife of Norman Manley
Norman Manley
Norman Washington Manley MM QC National Hero of Jamaica , was a Jamaican statesman. A Rhodes Scholar, Manley became one of Jamaica's leading lawyers in the 1920s...
, the founder of the Jamaican People's National Party
People's National Party
The People's National Party is a social democratic and social liberal Jamaican political party, founded by Norman Manley in 1938. It is the oldest political party in the Anglophone Caribbean and one of the main two political parties in Jamaica. Out of the two major parties, it is considered more...
. She is often considered the "mother of Jamaican art". She is the daughter of English cleric Harvey Swithenbank and a Jamaican woman by the name of Ellie Shearer. Her father died when Edna was nine, leaving her mother to raise nine children on her own. As the middle child, Edna Manley was highly independent and spirited. She once attended several art schools in a two-year period, although she sensed that these schools were incredibly limited in what they offered in their curriculum. Edna eventually married Manley (who was her Jamaican cousin) in 1921, and eventually moved with him from England to Jamaica in 1922. The couple had two children, Michael Manley
Michael Manley
Michael Norman Manley ON OCC was the fourth Prime Minister of Jamaica . Manley was a democratic socialist....
(who was to become a union activist and the eventual prime minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
, succeeding his father Norman) and Douglas Manley, a sociologist and minister in his brother's government.
Education
As a young woman, she took private art classes with the sculptor Maurice Harding. She went on to continue her art studies, namely sculptureSculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
, at the Regent Street Polytechnic
University of Westminster
The University of Westminster is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom. Its origins go back to the foundation of the Royal Polytechnic Institution in 1838, and it was awarded university status in 1992.The university's headquarters and original campus are based on Regent...
as well as the St. Micheal's School of Art in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
Artistic life
Her move to Jamaica had a profound impact on her work. She abandoned studying zoologyZoology
Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...
back in London, and her work took on a more "inspired formal elegance", according to Boxer. Manley's materials consisted mostly of native woods—she used yacka, mahogany
Mahogany
The name mahogany is used when referring to numerous varieties of dark-colored hardwood. It is a native American word originally used for the wood of the species Swietenia mahagoni, known as West Indian or Cuban mahogany....
, Guatemalan redwood, juniper cedar, and primavera. Some of the work dating from her first year on the island are "Beadseller", and "Listener". In describing "Beadseller", Boxer said, "It was as if in one fell swoop, nearly a hundred years of sculptural development had been bridged: in this, her first work done in Jamaica, Edna seems to have given expression to her ideas about contemporary British sculpture with which she had saturated herself prior to leaving England." Both pieces exhibited Manley's more progressive and cubist style.
Between 1925 and 1929, Manley softened some of her geometric forms, replacing them with more massive, rounded ones. Her son Michael was born during this time. "Market Women", a study of two voluptuous women sitting back to back, and "Demeter
Demeter
In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...
", a carving of the mythical Earth Mother, are indicative of Manley's late-1920s influence. The 1930s saw another change in her sculptural style. She tamed her early-1920s cubist lines with rounder influences, and produced a new, definitive style that lasted into the 1940s.
Jamaica was facing many political changes during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Members of the African diaspora
African diaspora
The African diaspora was the movement of Africans and their descendants to places throughout the world—predominantly to the Americas also to Europe, the Middle East and other places around the globe...
were looking to do away with the aging colonial system that remained on the island. They were ready for a new social order, and voiced their displeasure with the colonial system by incurring strikes (along with riots), instigating food shortages, and promoting protest marches. Manley's work of the time reflected this civil unrest. Works like "Prophet", "Diggers", "Pocomania", and "Negro Aroused" "caught the inner spirit of our people and flung their rapidly rising resentment of the stagnant colonial order into vivid, appropriate sculptural forms," wrote poet M. G. Smith.
Her works were exhibited frequently in England between 1927 and 1980. Her first solo exhibition in Jamaica was in 1937. The show marked a turning point in Jamaica's undeveloped art movement, and it prompted the first island-wide group show of Jamaican artists. Manley was also one of the founders of the new Jamaica School of Art. After premiering in Jamaica, her show opened in England, where it was received with much fanfare. It was the last time Manley's work would be shown in London for nearly 40 years.
Active for much of her life as an artist, she also taught at the Jamaica School of Art, now a component of the Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts
Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts
The Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts operates from a single campus, located in Kingston, Jamaica. This Government of Jamaica institution, formally known as the Cultural Training Centre, was in 1995 reclassified as a tertiary institution and renamed to its current name.The...
.
'negro aroused the art piece'=
While she was at London, Manley had discovered that the people of Jamaica had collected the money to buy her piece "Negro Aroused". Individuals pitched in whatever they could afford, purchasing the piece to begin a national art collection. She was highly moved by this act, partly because she claimed that it was such a difficult piece for her to create: "Negro Aroused,...was trying to create a national vision, and it nearly killed me, it was trying to put something into being that was bigger than myself and almost other than myself," Manley told Sculpture Review
Sculpture Review
Sculpture Review the official illustrated publication of the National Sculpture Society . It is based in New York City. As with the NSS, it is concerned with figurative sculpture. It features articles about the history of figurative sculpture and sculptors as well as current artists and trends.It...
.
The original sculpture of "Negro Aroused" was created in 1935 and was first exhibited in 1937. From its exposure, "Negro Aroused" excited the public's imagination, acquired by public subscription and presented to the Institute of Jamaica to form a nucleus for an upcoming exhibition.
In 1977, work began to enlarge the sculpture and to create a monument to the workers of Jamaica and the Worker's Movement which was born in 1938. Edna Manley was commissioned to recreate the work in bronze, at a scale three to four times that of the original. She was assisted by several young sculptors. Prior to its shipment to New York for bronzing, the seven-foot version was destroyed in a warehouse fire.
In 1982, Manley produced a third version, closer in size to the original, but it incorporated some of the subtle changes she had introduced in the destroyed sculpture.
In 1991, the sculpture was posthumously enlarged by utilizing the "scaling up" technique of bronze foundries for the enlargement of a sculpture. The third version was selected because it was closer in size to the destroyed version. The cost was met by public subscription.
Politics and art
Norman Manley entered politics, and founded the People's National PartyPeople's National Party
The People's National Party is a social democratic and social liberal Jamaican political party, founded by Norman Manley in 1938. It is the oldest political party in the Anglophone Caribbean and one of the main two political parties in Jamaica. Out of the two major parties, it is considered more...
in 1938. Although Edna Manley was hesitant at first, she quickly accepted her husband's place—and her own—in Jamaican politics. She also designed The Rising Sun logo for the People's National Party. The beginning of Jamaica's new government-—and the fall of colonialism-—was reflected in Manley's work, which at the time dealt with the cyclical, birth-and-death themes of the sun and moon. Her work was also heavily influenced by the nature that surrounded her at Nomdmi, the mountain retreat she had built with her husband.
The 1950s and 1960s were quiet times for Manley as an artist. Her husband became more involved with politics, becoming the chief minister
Chief Minister
A Chief Minister is the elected head of government of a sub-national state, provinces of Sri Lanka, Pakistan, notably a state of India, a territory of Australia or a British Overseas Territory that has attained self-government...
of Jamaica in 1955. Manley's responsibilities as the wife of a politician left little time for art. In 1965, she created a statue of Paul Bogle
Paul Bogle
Paul Bogle was a Jamaican Baptist deacon and is a National Hero of Jamaica. He was a leader of the 1865 Morant Bay Protests, which agitated for justice and fair treatment for all in Jamaica. Leading the Morant Bay rebellion, he was captured and hanged on October 24,1865 in the Morant Bay Court...
to commemorate his partaking in Jamaica's Morant Bay Rebellion
Morant Bay rebellion
The Morant Bay rebellion began on October 11, 1865, when Paul Bogle led 200 to 300 black men and women into the town of Morant Bay, parish of St. Thomas in the East, Jamaica. The rebellion and its aftermath were a major turning point in Jamaica's history, and also generated a significant political...
. The statue was highly controversial because it was inherently the very first Jamaican public statue that depicted a black man. Manley also returned, in her personal carvings, to the animal sculptures that she did as a young woman.
In 1969, Edna's husband (Norman Manley) had been laid to rest. He had helped Jamaica to achieve total independence from Britain and self government by 1962. Manley's carvings during this period were very personal—-reflections on her husband's death, her pain, and sense of loss. She retreated to the mountains and created "Adios," a piece interpreted as lovers in a last embrace, and "Woman," an agonized woman in reclusion. The end of this grieving period was marked by her creation of the triumphant "Mountain Women". She had accepted the loss of her husband. "I felt that because my roots were here in Jamaica, I could survive," she told Americas. "It was my return to the world after that period of intense grief."
After creating several more profound carvings, including "Faun," "Message," and "Journey," Manley gave her carving tools away to a young Jamaican sculptor and declared that she would never work with wood again. Instead, she worked with modeled terracotta or plaster casts. During the 1970s, the major themes of Manley's work were expressions of her "grandmother," or "old woman" image, of matriarchal society, and memories of her life with her husband Norman.
Manley continued to sculpt until her death in 1987. Although a great deal of her work was intensely personal, she created a body of sculpture that embodies Jamaican culture and spirit. English novelist Sir Hugh Walpole, a collector of her work, spoke at the opening of her 1937 London show. "There is a very strange and curious spirit there and Mrs. Manley has got within that strange spirit," he remarked. "There is in Jamaica a beauty that finds its expression through her, that comes partly from the Jamaican material she uses, partly from her own individuality, and partly also, I think, from the sort of sense of beauty that the different people of Jamaica themselves possess." For Manley, expressing the beauty of Jamaica was second nature. "I carve as a Jamaican for Jamaica," she told Americas, "trying to understand our problems and living near to the heart of our people."
Death
When Manley died in 1987, she was accorded an official funeral and buried in the tomb of Norman Manley at the National Heroes ParkNational Heroes Park
National Heroes Park is a botanical garden in Kingston, Jamaica. The largest open space in Kingston at 20 hectares in size, National Heroes Park features numerous monuments, and is the burial site of many of Jamaica's National Heroes, Prime Ministers, and cultural leaders.-History:Founded in 1783,...
, for apart from the fact that she was related to a national hero (husband Norman Manley
Norman Manley
Norman Washington Manley MM QC National Hero of Jamaica , was a Jamaican statesman. A Rhodes Scholar, Manley became one of Jamaica's leading lawyers in the 1920s...
) her contribution to Jamaica's art has earned her the unofficial title of "Mother of Jamaican Art".
Edna Manley College of the Visual & Performing Arts
Formerly the Jamaican School of Art, the school was renamed the Edna Manley College of the Visual & Performing Arts in 1995. The renaming of the institution was part of its reclassification as a tertiary institution. Edna Manley was selected in part because of her contributions to Jamaica's art, which included co-founding the school in 1950.Works
Her works include: "Whisper"; "Into The Mist", "Before Thought ", "Moon", "Eve", "Into The Sun", "Growth", "The Ancestor", "The Mother", "Negro Aroused", "Pocomania", "Diggers", "Man and Woman", "Bead Sellers ", "The Trees are Joyful", "Rainbow Serpent", "Rising Sun", "Prophet", "Ghetto Mother", "Mountain Women" and others mentioned above.Awards
Manley received numerous awards including:- Silver Musgrave Medal of the Institute of Jamaica (1929)
- the Gold Musgrave Medal of the Institute of Jamaica (1943)
- Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of the West IndiesUniversity of the West IndiesThe University of the West Indies , is an autonomous regional institution supported by and serving 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Dominica,...
(1975) - The Order of MeritOrder of MeritThe Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
(Jamaica, 1986)