Trinidad and Tobago’s cultural fraternity was hit another major blow yesterday, when it awoke to the news that another icon, LeRoy Clarke, had transitioned.
Clarke, an artist, writer and teacher, died at his home — The Legacy, House of El Tucuche in Cascade — early yesterday at the age of 82. His family confirmed he had been ailing before his passing.
Born in Gonzales, Belmont, in 1938, Clarke, recognised as one of the country’s finest contemporary artists, produced a significant and outstanding body of work in the field of art, making a name for himself not only here but in the United States, where he spent significant time in Harlem, New York in the 1970s, and Europe.
Clarke’s ability to vividly record with each stroke of his brush, T&T’s African culture and unique multi-cultural and multi-ethnic heritage in his pieces, drawing from his experiences of Hindu, Muslim, Shango and Shouter Baptist religious ceremonies and of the steelpan movement birthed in east Port-of-Spain, is what Clarke will most be remembered for.
In fact, he was a man of many other talents and displayed some of them as the lead singer of popular 1960s singing group The eamers and as an early member of the Trinidad Theatre Workshop, where he used his artistic talent as a stage manager and set designer. It was the recognition he brought to T&T as a self-taught artist, a talent he honed on the streets of Belmont in his early informative years, that first moved the National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago to confer on him the title of Master Artist in 1998 while he was named a National Icon by the government in 2003, and, of course, there has a long list of local and international accolades behind his name. Of course, he may have most treasured the Staff of Eldership and Chieftaincy title he was conferred with by the Orisha community in 2005, Honorary Fellow from the University of Trinidad and Tobago and Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of the West Indies in 2008.
Of course, he also shared his knowledge with major institutions, among them the University of the West Indies, Emancipation Support Committee, National Association for the Empowerment of African People and Carifesta, who will most certainly miss his input in their future activities. As the Emancipation holiday approaches, we most certainly expect that tributes will continue up to then.
In the past two years, we have lost icons in comedian/entertainment Dennis “Sprangalang” Hall and his playwright brother Tony Hall, calypsonian Sandra “Singing Sandra” Des Vignes-Millington, steelpan arranger, Lennox “Bobby” Mohammed, dance pioneer Torrance Mohammed, rapso legend Lutala “Brother Resistance” Massimba to name a few, and now Clarke. And in some cases, we have not been able to give some of them the send-off they truly deserved.
This is why we are taking this space to give Clarke his due. Ki o wa ni isimi (May he rest in peace - Yoruba).