It is with a heavy heart we report the passing of Trinidad’s Master Artist, poet, lecturer, and philosopher, LeRoy Clarke. According to reports, Clarke was said to be in poor health before his death and died on July 27th, 2021 at his home in Cascade in “The Legacy House” as it is more commonly known; he was 82 years old.

Given the title of “Master Artist” in 1998, LeRoy was the first artist in Trinidad and Tobago to be awarded this title. This accolade was given to him by the National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago. He also received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Trinidad and Tobago and additionally, at the 6th Shango/Oshun Rain Festival, the national icon was also accorded the Staff of Eldership and Chieftaincy.

LeRoy Clarke who was born in Belmont on November 7, 1938,  began his life work, an epic sequence of paintings, drawings, and poems called ‘The Poet’ at the beginning of the 70s. It turned out to be far more extensive and complex than he had envisaged. The first phase of ‘The Poet’, Fragments of a Spiritual, was done during the ’70s. But it was the second phase called Douens, for which he gained international recognition. It involved over 250 paintings, about four hundred drawings, and a book of poems. In Trinidad and Tobago folklore, Douens are sad, playful entities. The spirits of the children who died before they were baptized. They are characterized by their feet pointing backward. LeRoy saw them as a symbol of “the plight of third world peoples under the tutelage of conquerors. I had begun to see us after all these years as giddy and lost people.” he said.

LeRoy Clarke’s De Meeting

More on the work of LeRoy Clarke can be read at: https://www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-15/warrior-art-leroy-clarke#axzz71ylvDYew