Karl Parboosingh

'Karl Parboosingh was born in Highgate, St. Mary to Mr and Mrs Vivian Coy in 1923. He went to high school in Kingston, attending both the Calabar High School and the Wolmer’s School for Boys. In 1942, he left Jamaica to attend the Art Students League in New York. From there, he travelled worldwide, initially as a soldier in the US army during World War II in 1945, then to other international art centres to work and study, namely Rome and Paris (years later he was to name his son after the city). In 1952, he studied in Mexico, under the tutelage of Spanish painter, Jose Guttierez and Mexican muralist, David Alfaro Siquieros – the influence of socialist ideology is evident in some of his major works. Karl met and married his second wife Seya Parboosingh in New York, 1957 and credited himself as being instrumental to her, a creative writer, becoming a painter as well. They settled in Jamaica in 1958. Aside from his canvas works, he is additionally credited with the creation of several murals commissioned by the government and other entities – the social potential of public murals was being explored in Jamaica in the late 1950s and 60s. Such examples can be seen at the Norman Manley Law School at the University of the West Indies Mona Campus, the Church of the Resurrection in Duhaney Park and the Olympia International Art Centre in Papine where he was chosen as the centre’s first artist in residence. There he continued to live and worked until he took ill and died on May 18, 1975.' https://nationalgalleryofjamaica.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/jamaicas-art-pioneers-karl-parboosingh-1923-1975/