Like the lead partitions in stained-glass windows, the dark underpainting enhances Mr. In 'Lovers,' it is on the rear of a woman in a pink and orange dress, which, again, is In 'Social,' the emphasis is on a sinuous woman sheathed in daffodil yellow whose lover hangs around her neck, a pleading expression on his face. She walks home from a party alone and evidently is not too pleased about it. A third is portrayed in a full-length gown patterned with pink-gray Cheerios onĪ dark gray ground. Another sits, a vision in a black lace dress. One poses against a Manhattan-like skyline, her hair pulled out on either side as if to compete with the buildings behind her. His subject is women of African descent and the way some of them make an art form out of their looks.

Holder draws on black paper and seemingly paints But it turns out that nothing can detract from the power of the images. This, too, is theater, and besides numbing the viewer for aįew minutes, it makes the paintings hard to tell from the drawings in colored pencil.

Nor is there much help to be had from the show, which numbers 35 works, spanning the period 1983 to 1993, all encased under glass in gilded baroque frames, some of them frames within frames. The catalogue includes pictures of his earlyĬanvases but not enough of them to give an idea of his development. For the reader, this is the end of Boscoe, who disappears from the script, and the beginning of his brother's career. Images, not counting those taken for professional purposes, he is, variously stern, thoughtful or animated but always self-conscious.Īs the artist explains, his guiding light was from the beginning his elder brother, Boscoe: 'Everything Boscoe did I wanted to do,' he says, and that included painting, dancing, studying art books and, eventually, leaving Trinidad - Boscoeįor England, Geoffrey for the United States. Picture shows him as a smiling 12-year-old clad in the English-style uniform of the Queens Royal College in Trinidad, where he counted among his classmates the uneuphoric novelist-to-be, V. Since it is impossible to tell whether the euphoria is professional or innate, the reader pays close attention to the catalogue photographs of the artist, his parents, his many friends and his wife, who is the dancer and actress Carmen de Lavallade. The theatrical personality, flitting from incident to incident, dropping a few too many names and above all recalling silver linings rather than the clouds. Besides, 'painting,' he says, 'has always been how I have earned my living.' Still, in his statement, Mr. Holder's efforts are among the exceptions, as are those of Martin Mull and the late Rex Harrison. Says in his catalogue essay that he never wanted to be known as 'an actor/dancer who paints' - and understandably so, for attempts to combine the two disciplines tend to be embarrassing if not disastrous. Holder promptly made two debuts, one as an actor in Truman Capote's 'House of Flowers,' the other as a painter having his first major exhibition. Having arrived in Manhattan from Trinidad, in the early 1950's, Mr. Its catalogue, however, is similar to that for the Katonah display in being good to look at but disappointingly short on vital statistics.Īdd to this its somewhat theatrical tone. 'Geoffrey Holder, the Painter' comes from the art museum at the State University of New York in Albany. Returned to the county, playing the Fine Arts Gallery at Westchester Community College here.

But though he has probably spent as much time at the easel as on the stage, Mr. It may also be superfluous to identify him as the collector whose enviable holdings in the art of Haiti, Africa (East as well as West)Īnd Mexico were unveiled at the Katonah Museum in 1991. GEOFFREY HOLDER needs no introduction as a dancer, singer, choreographer, composer and designer of sets and costumes.

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