Ron Savory: A Guyanese quest
( The following is a revised version of an illustrated talk presented at Moray House Trust, on Saturday, November 7, 2020)
of the interesting things about Ron Savory is that while he was an active artist, and an innovator in Guyanese painting, very little critical work has been done on him. This is true of all Guyanese artists, but some have received scholarly attention in Guyana and even abroad, such as Stanley Greaves, Philip Moore, and Aubrey Williams.
Savory felt this lack of recognition, as his niece Denise Savory-Archer wrote in a posthumous tribute to him in 2019: “He always spoke of the lack of appreciation for his art throughout the
Caribbean. He always felt under-appreciated!” Savory also discussed it himself, as he did during a talk at the National Gallery, Castellani House, in 1996. One example he gave was that in 1969-70, the newly-opened Pegasus Hotel painted over a mural he had been commissioned to do.
This is a very interesting situation, since Savory was intellectually active and moved in a circle of people who were the young intellectuals of the day. Savory also was a very active and passionate man of many activities. Apart from being an artist, he was also involved in broadcasting. He was a civil servant, musician, basketballer, theatre lighting and sound technician, radio producer, and jazz musician, among other things.
Yet, it is as an artist that he is best-known in Guyana, and he eventually gave up other jobs to focus on art. So we can imagine how difficult the lack of recognition was for him.
Life
Ronald Cecil Savory was born to Clarine Dewar and
Ron Savory
Neil Savory on November 21, 1933. He was the youngest of 4 boys. He had his secondary education at Queen’s College, and graduated in 1951.
After leaving school, he did several jobs and eventually joined the public service, working at the Lands and Mines Department. In October 1959, he was posted to Kamarang in the Mazaruni as a clerk to the Assistant District Commissioner, and he worked there until 1962. That was the major turning point in his artistic life. In 1960, he married Sheila Hancock. After Kamarang, Savory worked in Lethem between January and September 1964. He then moved back to Georgetown, resigned from the civil service, and was appointed an Administrative Officer with the British Council in 1965.
In 1968, he benefited from a British Overseas Development training stint with the BBC, during which he worked with engineers, architects, and museum curators. When he returned to Guyana, he worked for the Guyana Broadcasting Service (GBS), a local radio station, from 1968 to 1974.
Savory was involved in the Theatre Guild and assisted with lights and sound. He had a show on the radio where he played and talked about jazz. He not only loved listening to music, he also played the steel pan. In 1956, he was part of the Symphonia Steel Band in the production of Cecily De Nobrega’s “Stabroek Fantasy”.
He was a part of the Taitt Yard, a loose group that congregated at Taitt House (now Cara Lodge) including Helen and Clairmont Taitt, Cecily De Nobrega, Hugh Sam, Michael Gilkes, Ken Corsbie, Ricardo Smith, Marc Matthews, Stanley Greaves, and others. Taitt House was an informal intellectual centre which nourished these young people who were the literati of
1950s-70s Guyana.
Savory nevertheless remained the artist during these different phases. He sold his first painting in 1958, and he had exhibitions and shows almost every year. He was involved with the British Council and the USIS Library and his shows were often held there.
He had his first one-man exhibition at the Guyana Society 1959. He showed works from his time in Kamarang in a 1962 exhibition along with Michael Leila, Emerson Samuels, and Stanley Greaves at the Bookers Universal Building (now Guyana Stores, at Main and Church streets). In 1967, he was invited to hold an exhibition at the Carlart Gallery in Port of Spain.
He also did shows in Sussex, Dominica, Barbados, St Lucia and, of course, in Guyana. In 1970, he was invited to coordinate the mounting of the art exhibitions for the first Carifesta, which was held in 1972. This meant mounting 36 exhibitions across Guyana. This he did along with 14 other Guyanese artists.
Savory also had stints teaching art at the Guyana School for the Arts (run by Helen Taitt at Taitt House), St Margaret’s, and the Cyril Potter College of Education. He also wrote about, but did not publish, his experiences and those of other artists.
At some point, according to his niece, he “decided it was time to realise his dream and become a full-time artist”. This decisive move happened in 1974, when he resigned from the GBS. He continued working prolifically, exhibiting at regional festivals and events such as Carifesta, Art Creators (Trinidad), Carib Art (Curacao) and Domfesta (Dominica), and doing commissioned work.
In January 1980, he left Guyana and moved his family