Donald Locke
| Donald Cuthbert Locke | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 17 September 1930 Stewartville, Demerara County, Guyana |
| Died |
December 6, 2010 (aged 80) Atlanta, Georgia, United States |
| Nationality | Guyanese |
| Occupation | Artist |
| Known for | Wood sculptures |
Donald Cuthbert Locke (17 September 1930 – 6 December 2010) was a Guyanese artist who created drawings, paintings and sculptures in a variety of media. He studied in the United Kingdom, and worked in Guyana and the United Kingdom before moving to the United States in 1979. He spent his last twenty years, perhaps the most productive and innovative period, in Atlanta, Georgia. His eldest son is British sculptor Hew Locke.
Donald Locke was born on 17 September 1930 in Stewartville, Demerara County, Guyana. His father, also Donald Locke, was a skilled carpenter who made furniture and his mother, Ivy Mae (née Harper), was a primary school teacher. The family moved to Georgetown in 1938, where Locke attended the Bourda Roman Catholic School and then the Smith’s Church Congregational School. He went on to the Progressive High School, graduating in 1946. He was accepted as a student at the Broad Street Government School, where he became increasingly interested in drawing.
In 1947 Locke attended a Working People's Art Class (WPAC) taught in Georgetown by the local artist Edward Rupert Burrowes. This inspired him to take up painting. Burrowes has often been called the "father of Guyanese art". Writing about Burrowes in the 1966 Guyana Independence Issue of New World, Locke describes how he was constantly engaged in "technical exploration", including making his own paints from unlikely ingredients and conducting experiments "with balata, buckram, tailor's canvas, rice bags, bitumen, concrete and ... clay mixed with molasses."
In 1950 Locke graduated with a Teacher's Certificate. Locke became a regular contributor to the annual WPAC exhibitions, and for a while was secretary of WPAC, helping to organize exhibitions in different locations. In 1952 WPAC gave him the First Prize Gold Medal Award for his abstract painting The Happy Family. He was given a British Council art scholarship in 1954, the last such scholarship to be awarded in Guyana in this period, with which he was able to study ceramics at the Bath School of Art and Design at Corsham, England. The Guyana Department of Education provided an additional scholarship that funded his third year at Corsham. He was taught painting by William Scott and Bryan Wynter, pottery by James Tower and sculpture by Ken Armitage and Bernard Meadows. He graduated in 1957 with a Teaching Certificate in Art Education.
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