Art
Maxwell Rabb
Portrait of Boscoe and Geoffrey Holder, London, 1961. Courtesy of the Holder Family Archive.
Geoffrey Holder, Woman on man’s shoulders, approx. late 1970s. © Geoffrey Holder. Courtesy of Geoffrey Holder Estate and James Fuentes.
Dancer, choreographer, designer, actor and painter – brothers Boscoe Holder and Geoffrey Holder wore all these hats as they charted parallel paths through art and performance over careers that spanned more than half a century. Born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1921 and 1930 and settling in London and New York respectively, the brothers drew inspiration from their rich heritage and the cultures of their adopted cities to develop strong interdisciplinary practices, mirrored across the Atlantic Ocean.
“For my father and my uncle, their vision was inspired by all the artistic elements. Each element influenced the other. In that respect, there was no separation,” said Christian Holder, Boscoe’s son, in an email interview. This fluidity underpins two exhibitions at London’s Victoria Miro, on view through July 27, which will be presented in collaboration with James Fuentes and the estates of the two brothers For the first time, the paintings of Geoffrey and Boscoe are exhibited together, highlighting the kinship between their emotional portraits of people of color.
Installation view of “Boscoe Holder | Geoffrey Holder” at Victoria Miro, London, 2024. © Geoffrey Holder. Courtesy of Geoffrey Holder Estate and James Fuentes.
The brothers were artistic collaborators in childhood before forging their own paths. Growing up in Port of Spain, they performed together in the Boscoe Holder Dancers, a company led by the elder. Boscoe subsequently moved to London in 1950, where he formed a new group, Boscoe Holder and his Caribbean Dancers, with his wife and principal dancer, Sheila Clarke. Meanwhile, Geoffrey ventured to New York in 1953, where he became a principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. Both brothers have been celebrated for their contributions to the performing arts: Geoffrey won two Tony Awards for his direction and costume design of the Broadway musical. The Wiz and played a villain in the James Bond film Live and let diewhile Boscoe’s dance group performed at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.
From performance to painting, everything Geoffrey accomplished, Boscoe pursued first. “My father, being 10 years older than Geoffrey, was the original. He was the mentor, although by osmosis (there was no formal mentoring or pedagogy),” said Christian. “My father planted the seed, but the work of Geoffrey developed quite individually,” he added.
Holder Boscoe, Fretwork, 1988. © Boscoe Holder. Courtesy of Boscoe Holder Estate and Victoria Miro.
And as the younger Holder became more well-known, he gave the flowers to his brother. “Geoffrey always went out of his way to acknowledge that Boscoe was his teacher or helped open the door, paved the way for him in his practices in various media and performance and painting,” said James Fuentes, whose eponymous gallery recently showed Geoffrey’s work in Los Angeles, in an interview.
The influence is evident when the brothers’ paintings are placed in direct conversation. Both Boscoe and Geoffrey’s works share an emotive and delightful use of color, their portraits of black subjects appearing against expressive fields of color in bright reds, yellows, blues and greens. The impact of their respective dance careers is felt in their depictions of lithe bodies in effortless poses. Both painters often capture their subjects naked, posed in moments of contemplation or leisure, as in Geoffrey’s work. Swimmers II (1986) and Boscoe Fretwork (1988), both seen in Victoria Miro.
Geoffrey Holder, Swimmers II, 1986. © Geoffrey Holder. Courtesy of Geoffrey Holder Estate and James Fuentes.
Where his work often differed was in the setting or aura. “Geoffrey’s approach was influenced by the immensity and energy of the United States. My father’s work, which finally came to fruition in Trinidad after his years in England and Europe, has a quieter tone,” explained Christian.
Those qualities can be seen in the new exhibits. Geoffrey’s featured works, created in New York from the late 1970s to the 2000s, run the gamut of city life. They move from the quiet intimacy of domestic scenes in works such as interlude (1986), a painting peeking through an open bedroom door with a naked couple, to the electricity of nightclubs, as seen in Yellow dancer (2006). Meanwhile, Boscoe’s works, drawn mainly from the 1990s and early years, were made in Trinidad, to which he returned in 1970, and often feature elements of the natural world. Paintings like Male nude on yellow blanket (undated) are particularly tender because of their combination of soft, luminous colors and soft brushwork. They convey a sense of intimacy, where the viewer feels alone with the subject.
holder of Boscoe, No title, 2001. © Boscoe Holder. Courtesy of Boscoe Holder Estate and Victoria Miro.
Geoffrey Holder, Possible self-portrait, nd © Geoffrey Holder. Courtesy of Geoffrey Holder Estate and James Fuentes.
After Boscoe returned to Trinidad, he switched from his work as a dancer and choreographer to focus on painting. He bought a small house in Port of Spain, where he worked tirelessly. The studies of Trinidadian landscapes and the human form that emerged from this period followed his earlier impressionist-inspired paintings, which he produced from the 1930s to the 1950s, and the focus on portraiture that defined the output of his years in London. By the time he died in 2007, he had exhibited almost every year for nearly three decades.
Geoffrey, meanwhile, remained rooted in New York, where he continued to work as an actor and choreographer while maintaining his painting practice in the downtown loft he shared with his wife, the dancer Carmen de Lavallade. “I always thought of Geoffrey as a New Yorker,” Christian recalled. Like his surroundings in the city that never sleeps, his paintings often had a nocturnal cast, with twilight skies or bodies writhing in the gloom. He remained productive until the end of his life in 2014, making collages with everyday materials such as cardboard and contact paper in his later years.
Both fiercely creative to the end, the Holder brothers built expansive and intertwined legacies, suggesting that sometimes art is innate. As if dancing separately to the same music, Boscoe and Geoffrey always painted in sync. At the Victoria Miro, they are getting a well-deserved joint call.
Maxwell Rabb
Maxwell Rabb is the staff writer for Artsy.
