Modernist sculptor Ronald Clive Moody was born on August 12, 1900, in Kingston, Jamaica. Moody, who attended Calabar High School, wanted to pursue an arts degree, a career path that was strongly discouraged by his well-to-do family of medical and legal professionals.
And so, in keeping with family tradition, he chose to study medicine, dentistry in particular. He was promptly sent off to study at Kings College, London. There Moody would actively explore his love of art, which would change the trajectory of his life and legacy.
To commemorate the 124th anniversary of his birth, we have compiled this list of amazing facts to help you get to know this little-known enigmatic and pioneering figure in Jamaican art history.
1. An exemplary family
Ronald hails from a long line of medical professionals. His father, Charles Ernest Moody, was a pharmacist in Jamaica.
His eldest brother, Harold Arundel Moody, was an acclaimed physician who was also born in Kingston, Jamaica, and attended Kings College in London to study medicine. Harold became an anti-racist campaigner as a result of being refused work because of the colour of his skin, and in 1931 he would establish the League of Coloured Peoples in London.
The second eldest brother, Ludlow Murcott Moody, who attended Wolmer’s High School, was an award-winning physiologist who, as you may have guessed, also studied medicine at Kings College in London. Ludlow received the Warneford Scholarship, the Huxley Prize for Physiology, the Warneford Prize, and the Todd Prize for Clinical Medicine.
2. An artistic autodidact
While studying at Kings College, Moody was also indulging his fascination with Eastern philosophy, which would later influence his art. An habitué of galleries and museums Moody would become particularly enamoured with sculptures in the Egyptian galleries at the British Museum.
Inspired, he made the bold decision to deviate from the family path to pursue art. Moody never received formal training as a sculptor but would instead hone his self-taught skills as a carver through experimentations with plasticine, clay, wood, and left over plaster of Paris from the dental surgery where he worked.
Four years after graduating, in 1934, he completed his first carved figure in wood, titled ‘Wohin’, and two years later, he began solo exhibitions in Paris. The positive reception of his work in France was a major boost to his fledgling career, and soon thereafter he was exhibiting in Amsterdam and America.
3. Escaping the Nazis
The onset of World War II cut short Ronald’s career, and shortly before the Germans invaded Paris, Ronald and his wife Helen fled, leaving behind his sculptures.
What followed was an arduous 16-month-long journey through Marseilles, then across the Pyrenees mountain range into Spain and eventually back to England.
Although he made it back to England in one piece, he was not in good health; he had contracted pleurisy, a condition that would permanently affect his health.
4. Lost work returned
On his return to England, Moody would establish a studio and resume his work; several exhibitions followed, which brought him a growing presence on the British art scene. He became active in artist networks, receiving regular commissions through his Society of Portrait Sculptors membership.
During that time, Moody would expend a lot of time and energy fighting for the return of his lost works from formerly occupied Paris and the US. All but one piece titled ‘Midonz’ were eventually returned during his lifetime.
The ‘Midonz’ was posthumously returned to his estate in 1994, thanks to the efforts of his niece Cynthia Moody, who inherited his estate and became the trustee of his archive.
5. Gigantic works
Moody is known for his gigantic ‘large-scale figurative sculptures’ made in wood in the 1930s, including ‘Wohin’, 1934, and ‘Johanaan’, 1936, through to post-war experimentation with concrete, bronze, and resin casting.
His sculptures are said to be inspired by ancient Egyptian sculptures and the royal bronze heads from Ife, Nigeria.
‘These gigantic heads are archaised forms that pay homage to Eastern philosophy rather than Greek classicism. They communicated an idealised and universal understanding of man’s origins that went against the grain of fascist tendencies already apparent in prewar Europe.’ – The Petrine Archer Blog
In 1947, Moody contracted tuberculosis, which greatly impacted his ability to sculpt large pieces.
6. BBC broadcaster
Ronald became a regular contributor to the BBC’s ‘Calling the West Indies’ programme in the 1950s. The original 20-minute Sunday show featured West Indian troops in active service reading letters on air to their families back home in the Islands.
The program later became Caribbean Voices (1943–1958) and featured stories, poems, and other literary works by West Indian writers. Ronald scripted and hosted an eight-part series on the history of art.
He also contributed to other BBC programs during that time, such as ‘Letter from London’, ‘Caribbean Survey’, and ‘West Indian Diary’.
Fun fact Ronald’s brother Harold was a contributor to ‘The Colour Bar’, a radio program ‘addressing racial prejudice in Britain’ from the perspective of persons of ‘negro descent’.
7. The bird God Savacou
The Savacou sculpture is one of Moody’s most well-known and celebrated works from the 1950s. It is an aluminium bird depiction of the Carib God Sawaku, who purportedly controlled thunder and strong winds.
According to Taino cosmology, Sawaku assumed the form of a bird while on earth and then returned to heaven as a star.Dr. Cochrane would later donate the sculpture to the University of the West Indies, Mona, here it was installed outside the Tropical Metabolism Research Institute.
The Institute serves as the Caribbean branch of the US Cochrane Centre (CBUSCC). Read more about this collaboration here.
8. The Caribbean Artist Movement
Unlike his activist brother Harold, Ronald was notoriously apolitical. However, in 1967 he would become a member of the short-lived Caribbean Artist Movement (CAM).
Founded in 1966, the CAM was a highly influential collective whose goal was to celebrate and promote the work of Caribbean film makers, musicians, writers, and other creatives. Ronald would regularly participate in CAM-organised events such as exhibitions, seminars, debates, and readings.
Moody became a mentor to younger artists, such as Jamaican painter and sculptor Errol Lloyd, whose origin story of coming to London from Jamaica to engage in traditional studies but falling into art paralleled his own.
In 1970, CAM launched the Savacou journal, so named after Moody’s famous sculpture. The organisation would shutter in 1972.
‘In its intense five-year existence, it set the dominant artistic trends, at the same time forging a bridge between West Indian migrants and those who came to be known as black Britons.’ – Angela Cobbinah, Camden Journal
9. A posthumous homecoming
It wasn’t until some 16 years after his death that there would be a substantive showing of Moody’s work on the island. In 2002, the National Gallery of Jamaica hosted the ‘Tribute to Ronald Moody’ exhibition, ‘consisting of twelve of his artworks held within Jamaican collections, covering a range of his work from 1936-1980’.
10. A Moody renaissance
Now celebrated as ‘one of the most significant artists of the 20th century,’ Moody actually received very little recognition in Britain for his pioneering work during his lifetime.
However, in Jamaica, he was a celebrated artist who, in 1977, was a recipient of the prestigious Jamaican Musgrave Gold Medal for his eminence as an international sculptor and the Centenary Medal in 1980, both awarded by the Institute of Jamaica.
In recent years, there appears to be a renewed appreciation for his work, as evidenced by multiple studies, research, collections, and exhibitions of his works at established art institutions in London, such as the Tate.
Finally, Moody’s work is receiving the critical acclaim and recognition it truly deserves. As they say, better late than never.
