Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the work of Trinidad's first in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned artist Michel-Jean Caz­abon is so un­known in this coun­try that it's em­bar­rass­ing.

He said at least 95 per cent of stu­dents did not know "any­thing about Caz­abon, far less his his­to­ry and our his­to­ry tied up in what Caz­abon rep­re­sents."

At the Oc­ta­gon Room of the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre on Sat­ur­day, 49 paint­ings de­pict­ing T&T's icon­ic land­scapes, na­ture, peo­ple and build­ings were un­veiled to guests.

Some of the names in the col­lec­tion in­clude Old Wood­brook Es­tate, Pine House, House in Trinidad, East In­di­an Girl, Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain, Riv­er Scene and Mara­cas Riv­er.

Row­ley, dur­ing his ad­dress in the ball­room be­fore the un­veil­ing, said it was around 2005 that he en­cour­aged for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning "who will­ing­ly agreed to be en­cour­aged" to have the coun­try buy sev­er­al pieces of paint­ings that were on sale in Lon­don and repa­tri­ate them to T&T.

He said they were kept at a mu­se­um but he al­ways felt they should have been made avail­able to the pub­lic.

"They were not pre­sent­ed to the peo­ple as they should," he said.

But lat­er on, and dur­ing a dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic pe­ri­od, the PM said an­oth­er batch of Caz­abon's paint­ings were be­ing of­fered for sale. This time, as Prime Min­is­ter, he en­cour­aged the Cab­i­net to make the pur­chase.

"This evening is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to present them, first­ly to you," he said at the launch of the "Caz­abon Lega­cy Ex­hi­bi­tion."

Last year, the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced the pur­chase of 12 Caz­abon paint­ings which cost close to $3 mil­lion via auc­tion by Christie's Auc­tion House of Lon­don. That de­ci­sion was met with crit­i­cism from the Op­po­si­tion and union lead­ers who said the mon­ey could have been spent on oth­er pri­or­i­ty items.

The ex­hi­bi­tion is open to the pub­lic un­til Sep­tem­ber 24. It is the first time the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre will host such an ex­hi­bi­tion.

Row­ley said 19th Cen­tu­ry Caz­abon should be em­braced and that chil­dren need­ed to know their his­to­ry. Caz­abon was born on Sep­tem­ber 30, 1813 and died on No­vem­ber 20, 1888. He is buried at the Lapey­rouse Ceme­tery.

Row­ley said: "Look at the paint­ings and trans­pose your­selves from there to where we are now."

He said if there was any sense of hope­less­ness or dis­il­lu­sion­ment, look at the paint­ings and see the progress.

"We are on the way to a brighter fu­ture," he said.

The Prime Min­is­ter said every day in the news there were re­ports of vi­o­lence, even in his own con­stituen­cy where four peo­ple were killed re­cent­ly.

"And some peo­ple would want to think that is what we are but there is a much wider can­vas."

Row­ley said the be­hav­iour of the coun­try could change if chil­dren were ex­posed to the work of the artist.

In her re­marks, Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said the one-month ex­hi­bi­tion was al­so a cel­e­bra­tion of Eman­ci­pa­tion, In­de­pen­dence and Re­pub­lic Day.

She said: "It is a time of tak­ing stock of na­tion­al in­tro­spec­tion, a time when we think about who we are, where we are, where we are go­ing and how we are go­ing to get there."

Guests were treat­ed to per­for­mances by the Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra which re­ceived high prais­es from Row­ley.

More in­fo

Ac­cord­ing to Caz­abon's bi­og­ra­phy as writ­ten by cu­ra­tor Ge­of­frey MacLean, the artist was sent to Eng­land at the age of 13 to at­tend St Ed­mund's Col­lege in Ware.

He stud­ied art in Paris. Caz­abon re­turned to Trinidad in 1848 and in 1851 pro­duced a se­ries of 18 lith­o­graphs–Views of Trinidad. In 1857, he pub­lished a sec­ond se­ries–Al­bum of Trinidad and in 1860, con­tributed to two oth­er se­ries–Views of De­mer­ara and Al­bum Mar­tini­quaise.

MacLean wrote: "Caz­abon's oeu­vre is ex­ten­sive; his work shows a wide knowl­edge of me­dia –oils, wa­ter­colourist, gouache, ges­so. Al­though he was pri­mar­i­ly a wa­ter­colourist and land­scape artist, both his for­mal and in­for­mal por­traits are high­ly val­ued, and his il­lus­tra­tion for the news­pa­pers of the day are of im­por­tant his­toric sig­nif­i­cance."

Caz­abon mar­ried Louise Ros­alie Tro­lard in Paris and had three chil­dren.