The Guy McIntosh Collection is a donation of approximately 80 artworks, produced by some of Jamaica’s most avant-garde and experimentative artists of the 1980s and early 1990s. The collection is predominantly comprised of paintings executed in various media, including a few drawings and one sculptural work. The artists represented in this collection – which includes Milton Harley, Kofi Kayiga, Milton George, David Boxer and Omari Ra, among others – produced images that heavily utilized stylistic conventions from abstraction and abstract expressionism.
The artworks were selected from the private collection of the late Guy McIntosh – Jamaican framer, gallery owner, art dealer and patron – who passed away in 2011. McIntosh played an integral role in the support of these artists, given the very niched market for such works at the time. Despite this, art historian the late Dr. Petrine Archer expressed in 2011 that the works that were selected for the donation “… push the boundaries of our political, religious and moral values with strident imagery that speaks to the realities of life in post-Independence Jamaica”. The Guy McIntosh Collection provides an opportunity for viewers to appreciate the value of Jamaican avant-garde as a precursor moment to the contemporary developments of 21st century Jamaican artists.
