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Friday, July 11, 2025

Patriot and pioneer of the fine arts...

SONNYLAL’S SECRET TREASURE TROVE

by

Radhica De Silva
1584 days ago
20210314

A se­cret trea­sure trove of sculp­tures, paint­ings and prints, craft­ed by the hands of renowned artist Son­ny­lal Ram­bis­soon has been un­veiled for the first time since his death al­most three decades ago.

Along a wind­ing road in South Trinidad be­hind a non­de­script house, the pro­lif­ic pi­o­neer of the fine arts did some of his best works.

Some of these are show­cased in art gal­leries and mu­se­ums across the world.

Yet right here in south Trinidad, Ram­bis­soon's dusty work­shop stands ex­act­ly as it did on the day he died, back in 1995.

Walk­ing in­to his art stu­dio is every artist’s dream. In­side you can find dozens of rusty un­used pow­dered paint tins bought from Eng­land in the 1970s, bot­tles of paint pow­der, tubes of wa­ter­colours, hy­drochlo­ric acid, dozens of brush­es, pen­cils, etch­ing tools, easels and Ram­bis­soon’s very own print­ing press which he de­signed and built us­ing old truck parts.

Dr Sheila Atwarie-Rambissoon shows a painting titled Rime of the Ancient Mariner done in 1965.

Dr Sheila Atwarie-Rambissoon shows a painting titled Rime of the Ancient Mariner done in 1965.

RISHI RAGOONATH

His works, in vary­ing stages of com­ple­tion, stood on a ta­ble. Among them s a piece ti­tled Caribbean Heat, cre­at­ed for a Ger­man diplo­mat, a pas­tel mas­ter­piece show­ing San Fer­nan­do in the 1960s, wa­ter-coloured ink de­signs and ab­stract art­work us­ing patent pow­der, rock inks and ba­nana sap stains.

Ram­bis­soon's wife, Dr Sheila At­warie-Ram­bis­soon (an aca­d­e­m­ic in her own right) gave Guardian Me­dia an ex­clu­sive tour of his col­lec­tion on Tues­day. She ex­plained how Ram­bis­soon col­lect­ed rocks from the sug­ar­cane fields to make nat­ur­al ink.

Back then, the sug­ar­cane fields flour­ished around Ram­bis­soon's home which re­mained a source of mo­ti­va­tion for his many cre­ations.

“He would pound the rocks un­til it turned to pow­der. Then he would boil the lin­seed oil in a tin out in the back yard. Af­ter the oil cooled, he would pour the oil in bot­tles and string it up on a man­go tree out­side to set as a liq­uid paint base,” she ex­plained. He al­so made ink by ex­tract­ing the sap from fig trees.

Those pieces made with ink rocks re­mained vivid even though they were over 50 years old.

A LIFE OF WON­DER

Giv­ing an overview of their life to­geth­er, Dr At­warie-Ram­bis­soon said she mar­ried the artist when she was in her 30s and he was in his 50s. He was al­ready well-trav­elled, the broth­er of an am­bas­sador.

Hand­some and strong, Ram­bis­soon caused a flut­ter wher­ev­er he went.

r Sheila Atwarie-Rambissoon shows a painting called  Caribbean Heat which was made using bitumen and rock inks.

r Sheila Atwarie-Rambissoon shows a painting called Caribbean Heat which was made using bitumen and rock inks.

RISHI RAGOONATH

"He was al­ways watch­ing his paint­brush and his easel. Or do­ing sculp­tures out of clay, wood, stone or met­al. All the women in the vil­lage felt he was so hand­some but he nev­er had time for them," she joked.

De­spite be­ing flu­ent in five lan­guages in­clud­ing Ger­man, French, Span­ish, Ital­ian and Eng­lish, Ram­bis­soon re­mained hum­ble and gen­er­ous.

"He would will­ing­ly share his work and his tech­niques. He opened the house to strangers and al­ways shared knowl­edge wher­ev­er he went," Dr At­warie-Ram­bis­soon said.

Be­ing a true pa­tri­ot, the artist men­tored hun­dreds of art stu­dents over the years with­out charge.

Through the decades, he honed his skills by at­tend­ing art sem­i­nars, vis­it­ing mu­se­ums and pur­su­ing sev­er­al fine arts class­es abroad.

In 1972 he was award­ed the Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it (Sil­ver) for his con­tri­bu­tion to Art. He al­so served as a tem­po­rary in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor.

As the grand­son of in­den­tured im­mi­grants, Ram­bis­soon's love for art be­gan ear­ly as he helped in his par­ents' busi­ness, cre­at­ing pa­per dec­o­ra­tions for wed­dings and prayers.

In the 1950s, Ram­bis­soon won a schol­ar­ship to study Fine Arts for sev­en years at the Brighton Col­lege of Arts and Crafts in Eng­land.

Dur­ing that time he trav­elled to France, Rus­sia, Italy and Bel­gium, learn­ing every­thing he could about the world of art.

"One cold win­ter, he stayed in the print­ing press be­cause it was warm there and that was when he start­ed de­vel­op­ing a love for prints," she ex­plained.

Dur­ing the sum­mer of 1963 in Paris at the Ate­lier 17, Ram­bis­soon flour­ished un­der the men­tor­ship of the mas­ter print­mak­er Stan­ley W Hayter.

"He went to Rijksmu­se­um, the mu­se­um of the Nether­lands in Am­s­ter­dam. All the mu­se­um trips were re­al­ly fun. He reached as far as Rus­sia. His broth­er was the am­bas­sador and a se­nior per­son in the Em­bassy in In­dia. He had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to go there but he nev­er went. I was sev­en months preg­nant but he nev­er left me al­though I know he would have loved it there," Dr At­warie-Ram­bis­soon re­called.

From 1964 to 1965, Ram­bis­soon did post­grad­u­ate work at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don and was elect­ed an As­so­ciate of the Roy­al So­ci­ety of Painter-Etch­ers and En­gravers.

Dr. Sheila Atwarie-Rambissoon shows a photo of her husband at work.

Dr. Sheila Atwarie-Rambissoon shows a photo of her husband at work.

RISHI RAGOONATH

"He mas­tered etch­ings and en­grav­ings which were sold across Eu­rope and the Amer­i­c­as, yet he nev­er boast­ed but qui­et­ly sold his pieces some for 50 or 60 pounds," Dr At­warie-Ram­bis­soon re­vealed.

Nev­er one to short change any­one, Dr At­warie-Ram­bis­soon said her hus­band would nev­er sell an un­fin­ished piece.

Some of his pieces took years to com­plete.

"He nev­er rushed a paint­ing. It had to be per­fect," she added.

When he re­turned to Trinidad in 1965, Ram­bis­soon need­ed a print­ing press for his de­signs so he went to Baron En­gi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny in San Fer­nan­do.

"They were very ex­cit­ed about what he want­ed to do so he de­signed the print­ing press and un­der his di­rec­tion, the men fab­ri­cat­ed it out of truck wheels, gears and old truck parts," she said.

It was mount­ed in a room un­der his house.

Us­ing this print­ing press, Ram­bis­soon etched his own prints us­ing nat­ur­al inks, bi­tu­men and heat. It was a te­dious process.

"He had print­ing press plates which he had bought from Eng­land and France. He would put a light­ed can­dle un­der the met­al plate and put rosin pow­der on the op­po­site side of the plate to get it bub­bly, so the tex­ture of the print will be unique," she ex­plained.

Ram­bis­soon used a range of dry and wet meth­ods for his prints. His di­ver­si­ty with his craft earned him in­ter­na­tion­al ac­co­lades.

Dr Sheila Atwarie-Rambissoon shows a painting called  Caribbean Heat which was made using bitumen and rock inks.

Dr Sheila Atwarie-Rambissoon shows a painting called Caribbean Heat which was made using bitumen and rock inks.

RISHI RAGOONATH

A SCULP­TOR AND ED­U­CA­TOR IN HIS OWN RIGHT

Apart from his prints, Ram­bis­soon made a name for him­self as a sculp­tor. He was close friends with the late Dr Ralph Baney and his wife, ce­ramist Ve­ra Baney, who were in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned Trinida­di­an artists liv­ing in the Unit­ed States.

"They used to come right here in our back yard and sculpt out of wood and clay," Dr At­warie-Ram­bis­soon re­called.

But un­like the Baneys who spent their adult lives in Mary­land, USA, Ram­bis­soon pre­ferred his home­land.

"He spent most of his life teach­ing here. It was the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment that sent him abroad on a schol­ar­ship to study fine arts so he came right back here. He had every­thing he need­ed to sculpt and paint. He could come out­side any time and did not have to wor­ry about a cold win­ter," she added.

Hav­ing worked as a school prin­ci­pal for many years be­fore re­tire­ment, Dr At­warie-Ram­bis­soon said most peo­ple called him "Teach".

"He was one who al­ways made time to talk to oth­ers. His cre­ative mind was al­ways work­ing. If he found a piece of stone thrown away, he would bring it here. He would sculpt that stone in­to amaz­ing pieces," she added.

This was ev­i­dent as pieces of sculp­tures made of wood, clay, stone and alu­mini­um lay in glass cas­es up­stairs his home.

None of these pieces has ever been show­cased be­fore.

Dr At­warie-Ram­bis­soon said her hus­band's pieces were dear to them.

"Every piece you see here are our favourites, the ones we kept back for our­selves be­cause we loved them," she added.

She said her hus­band's kind­ness will re­main with her al­ways.

"He was a love­ly hu­man be­ing. You could talk to him, make a joke. He was nev­er too busy to talk. It was dif­fi­cult to see him an­gry. He was pleas­ant and nice to live with. He wasn't self­ish, an open per­son and he was a very nice man who was proud of his coun­try."

EX­HI­BI­TION COM­ING

Af­ter al­most three decades, Dr At­warie-Ram­bis­soon said she was fi­nal­ly ready to show­case the se­cret trea­sure trove which her hus­band left be­hind.

Arn­im Ali, own­er of Arn­im's Fram­ing So­lu­tions said he was pre­pared to ex­hib­it all of the work. The ex­hi­bi­tion will take place in south Trinidad.

"I am try­ing to bring aware­ness to his work be­cause he was a great artist that every­one should know about. It is over­whelm­ing for me to see his body of amaz­ing work. I am ho­n­oured that I am be­ing al­lowed to show­case his work. I have been in the busi­ness for 30 years. His di­ver­si­ty in all gen­res, wa­ter­colours, nat­ur­al inks, sculpt­ing, etch­ing and print-mak­ing...how he made his print­ing press and count­less num­bers of work around the world. How he shared his knowl­edge was in­spir­ing," Ali said.

He not­ed that even though Ram­bis­soon was known in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, his body of work should al­so be known to na­tion­als.

Any­one in­ter­est­ed in Ram­bis­soon's work can con­tact Ali at 752-4504 or call Bren­da at 460-7188.

Arts & Culture


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