Savacou (sculpture)

Last updated
Savacou
Artist Ronald Moody
Year1964
Typesculpture
Medium Aluminium
Dimensions213 [1]  cm(??)
Location University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica

Savacou is an aluminium sculpture of a stylised bird by the Jamaican sculptor Ronald Moody. It is sited on the campus of the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica.

Ronald Moody was a Jamaican-born sculptor, specialising in wood carvings. His work features in prestigious collections including the National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain in London, as well as the National Gallery of Jamaica. He was the brother of anti-racist campaigner Harold Moody and award-winning physiologist Ludlow Moody.

University of the West Indies International university in the Caribbean

The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turks and Caicos Islands. Each country is either a member of the Commonwealth of Nations or a British Overseas Territory. The aim of the university is to help 'unlock the potential for economic and cultural growth' in the West Indies, thus allowing improved regional autonomy. The University was originally instituted as an independent external college of the University of London.

Mona, Jamaica Community in Kingston, Jamaica

Mona is a neighbourhood in southeastern Saint Andrew Parish, approximately eight kilometres from Kingston, Jamaica. A former sugarcane plantation, it is the site of a reservoir serving the city of Kingston and the main campus of the University of the West Indies.

Contents

Commissioning

The sculpture was commissioned by the Epidemiological Research Unit in London to be sited in front of the Epidemiological Research Unit on the campus of the University College of the West Indies. [2]

Extensive discussions on the commission took place between Moody, Professor A. L. Cochrane, director of the London unit, and Dr W. E. Miall, director of the Mona research unit. [3] The statue was a gift from Cochrane to the Unit, rather than a gift to Miall in order to generate more press attention. [4]

Archibald Leman Cochrane CBE was a Scottish doctor noted for his book Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections on Health Services. This book advocated the use of randomized control trials to make medicine more effective and efficient. His advocacy of randomized controlled trials eventually led to the development of the Cochrane Library database of systematic reviews, the establishment of the UK Cochrane Centre in Oxford and the international Cochrane Collaboration. He is known as one of the fathers of modern clinical epidemiology and evidence-based medicine and is considered to be the originator of the idea of evidence-based medicine in the current era.

Moody was unaware of any surviving statues of the god Savacou and initially had planned to depict the god in the form of a heron with a similar pointy-headed look to other ritual bird depictions that had survived; [5] but, having considered the proposed site, the design was changed to that of a larger abstract parrot-shape with alterations to the legs and base. [6] [3]

Heron family of birds

The herons are long-legged freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 64 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera Botaurus and Ixobrychus are referred to as bitterns, and, together with the zigzag heron, or zigzag bittern, in the monotypic genus Zebrilus, form a monophyletic group within the Ardeidae. Egrets are not a biologically distinct group from the herons, and tend to be named differently because they are mainly white or have decorative plumes in breeding plumage. Herons, by evolutionary adaptation, have long beaks.

Parrot Order of birds

Parrots, also known as psittacines, are birds of the roughly 393 species in 92 genera that make up the order Psittaciformes, found in most tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies: the Psittacoidea, the Cacatuoidea (cockatoos), and the Strigopoidea. Parrots have a generally pantropical distribution with several species inhabiting temperate regions in the Southern Hemisphere, as well. The greatest diversity of parrots is in South America and Australasia.

At the time of the commission Moody had been interested in his West Indian background and was working in concrete, but subsequent to producing Savacou he changed medium. [1] Savacou is the most famous work from this period of his career. [7] Early in the design process the work was rejected by the Royal Academy. [8] A maquette of the sculpture was made in 1963 [6] and the sculpture cast in the summer of 1964. The cast sculpture was first exhibited in August and September 1964 on the lawn of the Commonwealth Institute, generating radio, television and filmed coverage. [2] [9] The statue was shipped to Jamaica but was damaged in transit and required repair before siting. [3]

Maquette scale model of unfinished sculpture

A maquette is a scale model or rough draft of an unfinished sculpture. An equivalent term is bozzetto, from the Italian word that means 'sketch'.

Commonwealth Institute institute in the United Kingdom

The Commonwealth Institute was an educational and cultural organisation promoting the Commonwealth of Nations that was based in Kensington, London. It was established, as the Imperial Institute, by royal charter from Queen Victoria in 1888 on Imperial Institute Road. Its name was changed to the Commonwealth Institute in 1958 and it moved to Kensington High Street in 1962. By statute, the operations were the responsibility of a Minister of State from 1902 to 2003 and the property occupied for the purposes of the Institute, and of the same name, was held separately by Trustees as a charity asset. In 1999, prior to the end of the statutory regime, arrangements were made for both the property and the operations to be transferred to a company limited by guarantee also called the Commonwealth Institute. The members were the representatives to the United Kingdom of all countries of the Commonwealth, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on behalf of Her Majesty's Government (HMG), the Commonwealth Secretary-General, and four independent UK citizens.

Description

The sculpture depicts the bird incarnation of Savacou (from the Carib word Sawaku meaning heron), [10] the god of storms and thunder who 'blows the lightning through a great reed'. [6] [11] The design is an abstract parrot shape [6] with the shape of the bird's comb hinting at the gods later metamorphosis into a star. [2] The sculpture reflects and attempts to create pride in Taino traditions. [12]

The design of the sculpture was later adapted as Carib War Bird for the flyleaf of the journal Savacou . [13]

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 Ronald Moody (1900–1984) Artist Biography, Tate.
  2. 1 2 3 "Brief article on ‘Savacou’ by Ronald Moody [1964–5]", Tate.
  3. 1 2 3 Subject file relating to sculpture, Savacou. Tate.
  4. "Letter from Ronald Moody to Professor A L Cochrane of the Epidemiological Research Unit (South Wales) 26 March 1964", Tate.
  5. "Letter from Ronald Moody to Dr Miall of the Epidemiological Research Unit (Jamaica) 18 May 1963" Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine , Tate.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Savacou Maquette, African and Asian Visual Artists Archive.
  7. "Ronald Moody", Diaspora Artists.
  8. "Letter from Professor A L Cochrane of the Epidemiological Research Unit (South Wales) to Ronald Moody, 26 April 1963", Tate.
  9. "Letter from Ronald Moody to Professor A L Cochrane of the Epidemiological Research Unit (South Wales) 6 September 1964", Tate.
  10. Shared Visions: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the University of the West Indies, Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, Catalogue, p. 19, Canoe Press, University of the West Indies, 1997.
  11. Rendel Harris, Boanerges, Cambridge University Press, 1913, p. 24.
  12. "Ronald Moody (1900-1984)", Petrine Archer [.com].
  13. Eddie Chambers, Black Artists in British Art: A History from 1950 to the Present, I.B.Tauris, 2014 ( ISBN   9781780762715), p. 69.