Carl Abrahams OD

Order of distinction

The Order of Distinction in Jamaica is the fifth in order of precedence of the Orders of Societies of Honour, which were instituted by an Act of Parliament – The National Honours and Awards Act.The Motto of the Order is "Distinction Through Service"....

 (May 14, 1911 – April 10, 2005) was a Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

n painter from the parish

Parish

A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...

 of St. Andrew. He was born in Kingston, Jamaica

Kingston, Jamaica

Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley International Airport to the rest of the island...

 and began his career in commercial art at the age of 17 as a cartoon

Cartoon

A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

ist and an illustrator for The Daily Gleaner

The Daily Gleaner

The Daily Gleaner, often just The Gleaner, is a morning daily newspaper serving the city of Fredericton, New Brunswick and upper Saint John River Valley. The paper is published Monday through Saturday and began operating in 1880. In April 2006, the paper switched from afternoon to morning publication...

and The Jamaica Times.

In 1937, while on a working holiday in Jamaica, Augustus John

Augustus John

Augustus Edwin John OM, RA, was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom....

, the iconic British artist, encouraged Abrahams to begin painting professionally. Abrahams taught himself to paint through self-study courses and manuals and by copying masterpieces from art books.

In 1944, during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 Abrahams served in the Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 in England. By the mid-1950s he had found his calling as a painter of religious subjects.

The National Gallery of Jamaica

National Gallery of Jamaica

The National Gallery of Jamaica, in Kingston, Jamaica, is Jamaica's premier art collection. It is located in the Kingston Mall, a commercial and cultural center on Kingston harbour....

 said of his monumental series of 20 paintings of "The Passion of Christ" that "the devout sentiment of a true believer marked Abrahams as Jamaica and the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

's finest religious painter."

His final decades saw few new developments in his style and he often repeated or created variations on many of his earlier paintings. Abrahams died peacefully at his home in 2005.

Works

• Last Supper
  Last Supper
  The Last Supper is the final meal that, according to Christian belief, Jesus shared with his Twelve Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as "communion" or "the Lord's Supper".The First Epistle to the Corinthians is...
  
  
• Destruction of Port Royal
  Port Royal
  Port Royal was a city located at the end of the Palisadoes at the mouth of the Kingston Harbour, in southeastern Jamaica. Founded in 1518, it was the centre of shipping commerce in the Caribbean Sea during the latter half of the 17th century...
  
  
• Woman I Must Be About My Father's Business
• Adam and Eve
  Adam and Eve
  Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
  
  
• Thirteen Israelites
• The Henry Ford Show
• Pan and His Musicians
• Backyard Preacher
• The Hand of Columbus
• The Ascension
• Hallelujah
  Hallelujah
  Hallelujah, Halleluyah, and the Latin form Alleluia are transliterations of the Hebrew word meaning "Praise Yah". The last syllable is from the first two letters of the name of God, YHWH, written JHVH in Latin). Hallelujah is found primarily in the book of Psalms...
  
  

Awards

• Royal Air Force (RAF) Award
• New York
  New York
  New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
  
   Critics Award
• Silver Musgrave Medal of the Institution of Jamaica
• Order of Distinction
  Order of distinction
  The Order of Distinction in Jamaica is the fifth in order of precedence of the Orders of Societies of Honour, which were instituted by an Act of Parliament – The National Honours and Awards Act.The Motto of the Order is "Distinction Through Service"....
  
  (Jamaica)
• Gold Musgrave Medal of The Institution of Jamaica

Reference

• Veerle Poupeye. Caribbean Art. London; Thames and Hudson; 1998.