Oil on cotton canvas, circa 1960. 762x1016 mm; 30x40 inches.
Provenance: private collection, New York.
Geoffrey Holder was born in Trinidad in 1930 and moved to New York City in 1952 after being invited to teach choreography at the Katherine Dunham School of Dance. By 1954 he had his first successful one-man show in New York at the Barone Gallery, and won a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts in 1956. Despite his talent as a painter, Holder is best known as an actor and dancer - he was a principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet from 1955-56. He also had many roles as actor, and was featured in such movies as Doctor Dolittle (1967), and Live and Let Die (1973) and 7 Up commercials. He was also a costume designer for Prodigal Prince (1967), The Wizard of Oz (1975), and Firebird (1982). His artwork has been exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC, Museum of the City of New York, the Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University and the Barbados Museum.
