Boscoe Holder

Arthur Aldwyn Holder (Boscoe Holder), dancer, choreographer and artist: born Port of Spain, Trinidad 16 July 1921; married 1948 Sheila Clarke (one son); died Newtown, Trinidad 21 April 2007.

On 31 October 2003, when the University of the West Indies conferred upon Boscoe Holder an honorary DLitt, it couldn't have gone to a more deserving person. Then in his early eighties, Holder had led a busy artistic life as a painter, dancer, costume designer, choreographer, dance instructor at the University of the West Indies, leader of an international dance group for nearly 20 years, orchestra leader and pianist.

Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1921 to Arthur Holder, whose family originated from Barbados, and his wife Louise, of French ancestry, Boscoe (Arthur Aldwyn at birth) was the oldest of five children. The youngest, Geoffrey, went on to become an acclaimed dancer and choreographer in the United States.

Boscoe was just five years old when, self-taught, he began painting. By the age of seven he was already playing the piano. He credited his mother with most of his success. Strong and artistic, she gave him the confidence to live his dreams: "She was a consummate woman," he said. "She could do everything!"

Educated at the Methodist Tranquillity School, Holder was fascinated by his island's culture. He researched and learned the local dances and songs of Trinidad, and by the late 1930s he was producing shows depicting the music, songs and dances of Trinidad. At the same time his artwork was exhibited, and in 1943 he became a founder and life member of the Trinidad Art Society.

In his dances he used traditional African Caribbean interpretations - shango, bongo and bélé - and he often used his dancers as models for his paintings. When American military bases were installed in Trinidad during the Second World War, Holder presented his own programme on the US Armed Forces Radio Station, WVDI. The show aired every Sunday afternoon.

His dance company also made regular appearances at various officers' clubs, and Holder was commissioned by scores of servicemen to paint their portraits so that they could send them home to their families in America.

In 1946, after visiting Martinique for the first time, Holder included the dances, songs and costumes of the French West Indies in his shows. The following year he travelled for the first time to New York, teaching Caribbean dance at the Katherine Dunham School, and exhibiting paintings at the Eighth Street Galleries. In 1948 Holder married a member of his dance company, a black Englishwoman called Sheila Clarke, and two years later, having had a son, Christian, they settled in London, which became their home for the next 20 years.

Holder was befriended by Oliver Messel, an interior and stage designer, who introduced him to his Mayfair friends, including Noël Coward. Boscoe Holder and his Caribbean Dancers, with Sheila Clarke as the lead dancer, had their own show on BBC television in 1950, Bal Creole. Holder and his dancers appeared in 1951 on BBC television again in Caribbean Cabaret with two fellow Trinidadians, the folk singer Edric Connor and the calypsonian Lord Kitchener.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Holder, who is credited with introducing limbo dancing and the first steel band to Britain, made many appearances in cabarets, theatre clubs, television shows and films. His dance company, representing the West Indies, performed before the Queen at her coronation in 1953. They danced on a barge, part of the Royal Flotilla, on the Thames.

The company also toured the Continent, appearing in Finland, Sweden, Belgium, France, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Monaco and Egypt.

For British television, in 1958 Holder choreographed an Armchair Theatre production of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones. He later appeared in episodes of such series as The Saint (1965) and Danger Man (1965). In 1959 he danced in the night-club sequence of the film Sapphire and he choreographed the calypso dancers in Tiger Bay starring Hayley Mills.

Although his dancing was given priority, Holder continued to paint, using his dancers as models. In Britain he exhibited at the Trafford Gallery, the Redfern Gallery and the Commonwealth Institute in London, and at the Castle Museum, Nottingham.

Returning to Trinidad in 1970, Holder decided to concentrate mainly on his paintings:

I love painting Caribbean people, especially the women, because they are so decorative. I capture all of the Caribbean in my work, the poverty, the strong black theme, the nature and the beauty. Looking at a painting is like taking a trip. When I look at each of my paintings, I can remember the sight, the taste, the smell, every detail of my life on the day it was painted. I would say it's more like déjà vu.

In recognition of his contribution to the arts, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago awarded Holder the Humming Bird Medal (Gold) and named a street after him in 1973.

A retrospective of his paintings, "Beauty in the Eye of the B Holder", was held in 1988, hosted by the Venezuelan Embassy in Port of Spain. From the late 1990s Holder held annual exhibitions at 101 Art Gallery in Port of Spain.

In 2002 Boscoe Holder was interviewed in Andrzej Krakowski's documentary Geoffrey Holder: the unknown side . . . In December 2004, Trinidad and Tobago issued a series of postage stamps featuring six of Holder's paintings.

Stephen Bourne