Dunstan St. Omer

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Dunstan St. Omer at the Knight Commander Award (2010)

Sir Dunstan St. Omer (born October 24, 1927 in Castries , St. Lucia , † May 5, 2015 ibid) was a Caribbean painter. He was known for his church art, especially for wall and ceiling paintings. In 2010 Sir Dunstan St. Omer was accepted as Knight Commander in the Order of St. Michael and St. George and thus elevated to the personal nobility .

Life

Dunstan Gerbert Raphael St. Omer was born as the second of three children to the married couple Gerald and Louisa St. Omer. He attended St. Aloysius Catholic Boys School in his hometown and then St. Mary's College there. After school he moved to Curaçao in 1946 and worked for a Dutch oil company until 1949. Back in St. Lucia, he worked in a variety of professions, including teacher at various schools and lecturer in painting at the local branch of the University of the West Indies . A scholarship enabled him to study art in Puerto Rico for a year in 1957/1958. From 1959 to 1962 he was an editor at The Voice , the leading newspaper in St. Lucia, and from 1971 until his retirement in 2000 he was head of arts in the Ministry of Education of St. Lucia.

Dunstan St. Omer was married with nine children. He was friends with the Nobel Prize winner for literature, Derek Walcott , who praised his friend's art in several poems, a. a. in the poem For the Altarpiece of the Roseau Valley Church, Saint Lucia (a tribute to St. Omer's altarpiece The Holy Family in the Church of Jacmel, Roseau Valley) and in Another Life , where St. Omer appears as "Gregorias".

Works

Interior view of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Castries

St. Omer created hundreds of Madonnas, landscape paintings and wall paintings for numerous Caribbean places of worship. In 1954 he painted a church in Gros-Islet (on St. Lucia) for the first time, then still in European style. In the 1960s he began to develop his own Caribbean style. His frescoes are considered early examples of inculturation in the fine arts of the English-speaking Caribbean.

His style of painting is characterized by the fact that he almost always paints Jesus Christ and the saints with black skin. The most famous examples are the wall paintings in the churches in La Clery, Roseau (representation of the Holy Family), Monchy (Last Supper), Desruisseaux (St. Rosa ), Fond St. Jacques (Portrait of Christ) and in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Castries (all in St. Lucia), in the Church of St Michel in François in Martinique (Life-Jesus cycle) and in Tunapuna in Trinidad . He also painted portraits of important people in St. Lucia. St. Omer was also famous for the design of the Saint Lucia flag created in 1967 .

Dunstan St. Omer dedicated each of his works to the Blessed Virgin Mary with the signature PLSV (= Pour La Sainte Vierge).

Honors

In 2004 Dunstan St. Omer was awarded the St. Lucia Cross, the highest honor in the country. In October 2009, the University of the West Indies awarded him an honorary doctorate. For his contribution to Caribbean art, he was knighted on April 9, 2010 by order of Elizabeth II .

literature

  • Patrick AB Anthony: Dunstan St. Omer. The man and his work . Jubilee Trust Fund, Castries 2007, ISBN 978-976-8212-14-6 .
  • Caroline Popovic: Hail Mary. St Lucian painter Dunstan St. Omer dedicates all his work to the Virgin Mary , In: Caribbean Beat , 1995, March / April issue.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Folk Research Center - St. Lucia: Sir Dunstan St Omer , accessed March 25, 2014.
  2. ↑ Press release of the Caribbean Community of May 7, 2015: Renowned artist Sir Dunstan St. Omer dies , accessed on October 13, 2015.
  3. ^ Patrick AB Anthony: Dunstan St. Omer. The man and his work . Jubilee Trust Fund, Castries 2007.
  4. ^ Caroline Popovic: Hail Mary. St Lucian painter Dunstan St. Omer dedicates all his work to the Virgin Mary , In: Caribbean Beat , 1995, March / April issue.
  5. ↑ Jochen Müssig: With Dunstan St. Omer, the Caribbean-wide known painter of people and landscapes, on Kul tour in St. Lucia , Handelsblatt, August 6, 2004, accessed on March 25, 2014.
  6. ↑ Derek Walcott: The poetry of Derek Walcott, 1948-2013 , selected by Glyn Maxwell. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2014, ISBN 978-0-374-12561-5 , pp. 220-223.
  7. ↑ Lecture by Patrick Anthony on “Eucharistic themes in Derek Walcott's work The Prodigal ” at the 12th Annual Catholic Theology in the Caribbean Today , Paramaribo, May 31, 2005.
  8. ↑ About St. Lucia - Visual Arts ( Memento of the original from July 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 25, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.visitslu.com
  9. ^ Caroline Popovic: Hail Mary. St Lucian painter Dunstan St. Omer dedicates all his work to the Virgin Mary , In: Caribbean Beat , 1995, March / April issue.
  10. ↑ Stan Bishop: Sir D! Legendary St. Lucian painter Hon. Dunstan St. Omer was one of the recipients of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's New Year's Honors ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , The Voice (Castries), January 5, 2010, accessed March 25, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thevoiceslu.com
  11. ↑ Mona. News from the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus , September 2009 edition, p. 9.
personal data
SURNAME St. Omer, Dunstan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Caribbean painter
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Castries , St. Lucia
DATE OF DEATH May 5, 2015
Place of death Castries