Boscoe Holder | Geoffrey Holder

‘Consider this: two black boys living their most audacious version of a freedom dream in Trinidad, a small place with the world shoved into all its corners. And the boys, who live in a small house, are surrounded by love and art and music shoved into all its corners… And it is close enough, if you pay attention, for the smell of the Caribbean Sea to waft into its rooms. And the smell of the sea mixes with the heady musk of vetiver and turpentine.’
— Attillah Springer, from a new essay, entitled Vetiver and Turpentine

‘Boscoe comes first. Prodigiously talented on the piano, he is earning a living by the age of nine, playing classics in the homes of the wealthy. And then comes Geoffrey. He follows his brother around learning to dance and paint and sing like him.’

‘If you want to know what beauty is, go to Trinidad, where the people have been repeatedly beaten for being too beautiful. Joy is our favourite kind of resistance.’

‘Boscoe and Geoffrey learned the art of that beauty and soon it began to spill out of them… It made Trinidad, already a small place, even smaller, too small a place to hold all that talent and range and audacity.’

‘Looking for Boscoe, is a treasure hunt to find his thoughts or his voice when he is not singing. Those who knew him when he came back to Trinidad say he only talked to you if he felt safe to share. And when he did, it was hilarious and provocative in the most tragically serious way that only this island could make you. “Introvert” feels too dread of a word to say that Boscoe preferred to let his art do all the talking.’

‘Now, put the idea out of your head that one was a painter who danced, and one was a dancer who painted. To compare them, to make them competitors, is to use the coloniser’s yardstick. To put a label on their talents is to deny the freedom they were always making in their songs, in their dances, in their paintings.’

‘Leaving gave them space to spread out their hummingbird wings and beat faster and louder, so the small island could be as big as the whole world… Both mined the audacious beauty they had seen in Trinidad to perform with great success to the kind of audiences that any great artist would dream about.’

‘They are dancers with a daily painting practice, seeing blackness in the songs and the music and the dance, and committing those moments to the canvas.’

‘I know the people they paint; I have seen them being present and beautiful every day. I know them. They are me. In the way their skin shines, in the way their eyes smile, in the unsaid words playing on their mouths, in the way their limbs yield and stretch towards the light.’

A painter, designer, dancer, choreographer and musician, Boscoe Holder (1921–2007) was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. A child prodigy, he began painting seriously and playing the piano professionally from a young age. He later formed his own dance company, the Boscoe Holder Dancers, and in 1947 visited New York for the first time, teaching dance at the prestigious Katherine Dunham School of Dance and exhibiting his paintings. Returning to Trinidad the following year, he married his leading dancer, Sheila Clarke. In 1950 they travelled to London, which was to become their home for the next twenty years. They formed the dance troupe Boscoe Holder and his Caribbean Dancers, performing at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Holder spent the next two decades touring Europe and further afield. Later in the 1950s he produced, choreographed and costumed shows at the Candlelight Room at The May Fair Hotel, where he also formed and led his own band. Film and television roles during this time included Sapphire and The Saint. He continued to paint throughout this period, exhibiting his work at venues including the Redfern Gallery, the Commonwealth Institute, the Royal Watercolour Society Galleries and the Leicester Galleries.

Holder returned to Trinidad in 1970, where he focused on painting until his death in 2007. He showed regularly in Trinidad and throughout the Caribbean. In 1973, in recognition of his contribution to the Arts, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago awarded him the Hummingbird Medal (gold) and named a street after him. He also received awards for his achievements from the governments of Venezuela and France, as well as various institutions in the US. Posthumous presentations of his work include the group exhibitions: In the Company of Alice at Victoria Miro, London, UK, in 2010 and Self-Consciousness, curated by Hilton Als and Peter Doig, at VeneKlasen/Werner, Berlin, Germany, in 2010. A new book, Boscoe Holder: Travels in Rhythm, A life of art and dance by his son Christian Holder is published by Rosenstiels in spring this year.

Geoffrey Holder (born 1930, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; died 2014, New York, USA) was a painter, photographer, choreographer, director, costume designer, dancer, actor and composer. Following the lead of his older brother, Boscoe, Geoffrey made his debut appearance with the Boscoe Holder Dancers at the age of seven. In 1953, invited by choreographer Agnes de Mille, he relocated to New York City, where from 1955–1956 he performed as a principal dancer for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet before embarking on a career in film, which included roles in Doctor Dolittle and the Bond movie Live and Let Die, and later television. His first solo exhibition in New York was held in 1954. By 1956 his work as a painter was recognised with a Guggenheim Fellowship. In New York, Holder found a muse in his wife-to-be, the distinguished dancer, actress, and choreographer Carmen de Lavallade. The couple married in 1955, travelling the world – including a period spent in Paris working with Josephine Baker – eventually settling in Lower Manhattan. During the 1970s Holder won two Tony Awards for his direction and costume design for the Broadway musical The Wiz and received multiple awards for his direction, costume design, and choreography.

Solo exhibitions have been held at venues including James Fuentes (2024: curated by Erica Moiah James, Los Angeles, USA; 2022: Pleasures of the Flesh, curated by Hilton Als, New York, USA); New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, USA; Mexican Cultural Institute, Washington, DC, USA; National Arts Club, New York, USA; Far Gallery, New York, USA; Griffin Gallery, New York, USA; and Randolph Gallery, Houston, USA, among others. His work has been featured in institutional group exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, USA; the California African American Museum, Los Angeles, USA; DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago, USA; Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, USA; Museum of the City of New York, USA; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA, among others. Holder’s works are in permanent collections including the Barbados Museum, Bridgetown; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, USA; Columbia University, New York, USA; and Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.