The National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago is pleased to present Jackie Hinkson: 5 decades of art. This show is a retrospective of work produced over fifty years by a Trinidadian artist. After graduating, Jackie Hinkson began teaching at Queen’s Royal College. After 16 years of teaching, he went on to work as a full-time artist, specializing in drawing, watercolour , oil painting, and wood sculpture.

Our permanent collection holds a number of his works dated 1982, when Hinkson produced a series of drawings documenting the built environment of Trinidad and Tobago. Some of these will be on display at The Alma Jordan Library at UWI - Disappearing architecture. This body of work is of great value to art and cultural researchers.

Jackie Hinkson, Store Bay Tobago, 1964

As our landscape changed so has Hinkson continued to visually document its evolution. In his more recent work as with the Christ in Trinidad series at Bishops Anstey High school, we see commercial billboards and crane-arms. His figures now carry laptop bags and use mobile phones. In the museum’s exhibition, private collectors have loaned us a number of works, which previously, could be viewed in private spaces.

We are pleased to also host the launch of his memoir What things are true at the opening of this exhibition.  This publication has been sponsored by bptt and brings a depth of understanding of the artist, which is a  perfect complement to the retrospective. bptt has also been a main sponsor in the realization of this retrospective and it has been a pleasure seeing this idea come to fruition.

Lastly, since this retrospective focuses strongly on draughtsmanship, as reflected in the drawing exhibition at Soft Box Art Gallery, we have invited a group of young illustrators to be part of a workshop activity in the museum. We are pleased to offer the gallery space as an open drawing studio between Mr Hinkson and others on three Saturday afternoons. The National Museum is committed to exhibitions which push us onto new ground in the dissemination of Trinidad and Tobago’s visual arts.