Opening Remarks by President of the Trinidad Art Society,
Mr Courtenay B. Williams

November 2002 Exhibition - 30.11.2002

"The Honourable Minister of Culture and Tourism, Members of the diplomatic corps, Members of the Board of the Trinidad Art Society, Artists, Ladies and Gentlemen.
We are grateful that you could set aside some time to celebrate with the Trinidad Art Society on the occasion of its 60th Annual November exhibition.
In a time when there is little respect for history and where information is all conveyed in sound bites, any opportunity to place the present in the context of the past must be grasped in order that the future might be productively charted.
How did we as an organisation arrive here?
It is important to note that The Trinidad Art Society pre-dates our Independence. In the early forties Sybil Atteck, one of our more gifted artists, was so anxious for the development of an Art Society for our visual artists, that she spent several years going from house to house soliciting help from other artists and well wishers. She eventually got 13 persons to come together, and in the September of 1943 the Trinidad Art Society was born.
The Society's first President was Mildred Faulkner, a water colourist who was wife of the then Principal of the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture. Among these foundation members were Alice Pashley an Englishwoman who had learned batik in Indonesia, H. May Johnson who later founded Queens Hall and started the Music Festival, while teaching music, coaching and conducting the choir at Bishop Anstey High School, Algernon Wharton a lawyer and Bertie Gomes a wrestler, politician and writer.
The British Council generously gave the Society premises at White Hall where we stayed until 1955. Together with the British Council we gave up White Hall so that our first Chief Minister Dr. Eric Williams could have an office. We moved into the loft of the property called The Wilderness on Pembroke Street. From 1960 we occupied the Woodbrook Market in French St. until it was broken down and we lost our possessions and archives, but not before we hosted the important National Independence Visual Arts Exhibition on the occasion of this country’s Independence Celebrations in August of 1962.
In 1966 we were given a grant of this piece of land here in Federation Park where we stand today celebrating our 60th annual November Art Exhibition. This 40 foot square building was supposed to be only the first phase of a much larger Visual Arts complex which was to have been named the Sybil Atteck Art Centre. This dream of Sybil Atteck and successive supporters of the Society remains unfulfilled.
Over the ensuing decades well nigh every one of this country's visual artists and many from the other Caribbean states have had some connection with the Trinidad Art Society or its Annual November Exhibition. The Trinidad Art Society can justly claim to have nurtured hundreds of artists while serving the visual arts and the general artistic community for close to sixty years with very slender resources and the voluntary work of its Board and faithful members.
In fact in 1997 the Trinidad Art Society was awarded the Humming Bird Gold Medal for its contribution to Culture. An award which the Society continues to be justly proud of.
We have a new Board and I am supported in the Society’s efforts by Audley Sue Wing, Vice President, Norris Iton, Treasurer, Laura Lee Braithwaite, Secretary, Val Ramcharan, Assistant Secretary, and executive members, Carlisle Harris, Deborah Souza-Okpofabri, Ian Gillette, Dr. James Armstrong and John Mendes. Without this group of volunteers and our corporate supporters, the work of the Society could not be continued. To them I express my gratitude and thanks. I would also like to thank those firms and organisations without whose help events like this would not be possible.
Not all of you may agree, but we feel proud of this juried exhibition and the fact that both the work of emerging artists and senior artists are hanging side by side. The Society commends the pieces submitted by non-member Paul Kain and members, Lisa O’Connor and Mary Adams respectively, and we trust that they will continue each in their own direction to search for their truth.
On the occasion of this 60th Annual November Exhibition however, I feel a sense of personal pride that the cultural representative of the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago has taken the time to celebrate this historic milestone with us. I refer of course, to our patron, the Honourable Minister of Culture and Tourism, Ms. Penelope Beckles.
I say personal pride for a number of reasons. We were at University at the same time, we were admitted to practice at the bar together and over the years in which we have been colleagues, I can claim to know that there could be no doubt that in this Minister we have a great patriot of Trinidad and Tobago and by reason thereof, a great supporter of our visual artists and their community.
In these circumstances, I take great pleasure in inviting the Honourable Minister address you and to declare this exhibition open."