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Derek Walcott ('The Sun Poet')

8 of 13 portraits matching these criteria:

- subject matching 'Acrylic'

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Derek Walcott ('The Sun Poet')

by Ross Wilson
acrylic pigments and chalk on card, 1997
31 in. x 42 in. (790 mm x 1092 mm)
Commissioned, 1997
Primary Collection
NPG 6400

Sitterback to top

  • Derek Walcott (1930-2017), St Lucian poet, playwright and theatre director. Sitter in 3 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Ross Wilson (1958-), Artist. Artist or producer of 14 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Wilson studied Fine Art at the University of Ulster and at the Chelsea School of Art and has been a visiting speaker at Harvard and Oxford Universities. This work was painted from sittings in St Lucia in the Caribbean.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • 100 Writers, p. 146
  • Cooper, John, A Guide to the National Portrait Gallery, 2009, p. 62 Read entry

    Wilson painted the Caribbean poet, playwright, theatre director and winner of the Novel Prize for Literature (1992) in his County Antrim studio from sittings in St Lucia.

  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 637

Placesback to top

Events of 1997back to top

Current affairs

The Labour party - re-branded as New Labour - win a spectacular landslide election and Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister. Their electoral campaign promised that 'things can only get better' and that their priorities would be 'education, education, education.' While New Labour's 'third way' centralist approach put off some party traditionalists, it secured the popular vote.
Princess Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed die in a car crash in Paris.

Art and science

J.K. Rowling publishes Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first of seven fantasy books chronicling the life of Harry and his friends at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: learning magic, breaking school rules, romantic entanglements and their struggles against the evil Lord Voldemort.
Scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland announce that they have cloned the first mammal from an adult cell: '6LL3', or Dolly the Sheep.

International

Governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten hands the island back to China after one hundred and fifty years as a British Colony. Although sovereignty was restored to China, it was agreed that the Island would become a 'Special Administrative Region' under the 'One Country, Two Systems' principle, effectively keeping its capitalist economy and way of life for a period of 50 years.

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