{{short description|Jamaican painter}} {{More citations needed|date=September 2015}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}} {{Use British English|date=March 2012}} {{Infobox person | name = Carl Abrahams | honorific_suffix = OD | birth_name = Carl Myrie Abrahams | birth_date = {{birth date|1911|05|14}} | death_date = {{death date and age|2005|04|10|1911|05|14}} | module = {{Infobox artist | embed=yes | works = {{ubl|''Thirteen Israelites''|''Last Supper''|''Destruction of Port Royal''|''The Ascension''|''Woman I Must Be About My Father's Business'' |''Adam and Eve''}} }} | module3 = {{Infobox military person | embed = yes | allegiance = {{flagu|England}} | branch = Royal Air Force | service_years = 1944-1947 | rank = | service_number = | unit = | commands = | battles = World War II }} | years_active = 1928–2005 | awards = {{awards|Order of Distinction|Gold Musgrave Medal}} | birth_place = Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica }} '''Carl Myrie Abrahams''' OD (14 May 1911 – 10 April 2005) was a Jamaican painter from Saint Andrew Parish.
==Biography== Abrahams was born in St Andrew, Jamaica to a middle class family.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=https://www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-75/father-abrahams|title=Father Carl Abrahams|first=Annie Paul |last=Issue 75|date=1 September 2005}}</ref> Carl's Father was a Jewish émigré from Austria-Hungary who came to the Island in 1906 to work on some of the Island's first motorcars. <ref name="Jewish">{{Cite web|url=https://www.academia.edu/7305519/Abrahams_Carl_Myrie_1911_2005_|title=Abrahams, Carl Myrie (1911-2005)|first=Huon|last=Wardle}}</ref> He began his career in commercial art at the age of 17 as a cartoonist and an illustrator for ''The Daily Gleaner'' and the ''Jamaica Times'' <!-- Unsourced image removed: thumb|left|250px --> as well as creating ads for Myers Rum and the Jamaica Biscuit Company.<ref name="auto"/>
In 1937, while on a working holiday in Jamaica, Augustus John, the iconic British artist, encouraged Abrahams to begin painting professionally. Abrahams taught himself to paint through self-study courses and manuals and by copying masterpieces from art books.
In 1944, during World War II Abrahams served in the Royal Air Force in England. By the mid-1950s he had found his calling as a painter of religious subjects.
The National Gallery of Jamaica said of his monumental series of 20 paintings of ''The Passion of Christ'' that "the devout sentiment of a true believer marked Abrahams as Jamaica and the Caribbean's finest religious painter."
Abrahams was a devout Christian and many of works revolved around religious themes with undeniable authenticity, paintings such as The Last Supper showcase Abrahams ability to add contemporary elements and twists to iconic religious parables.<ref>Boxer, D. (1 January 2003). Abrahams, Carl. Grove Art Online. Ed. Retrieved 22 April 2019</ref>
He was awarded the Musgrave Gold Medal for his work by the Institute of Jamaica in 1987.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://instituteofjamaica.org.jm/musgrave-awards |archive-url=https://archive.today/20141018165642/http://instituteofjamaica.org.jm/musgrave-awards |url-status=dead |archive-date=18 October 2014 |title=Musgrave Awardees |publisher=Institute of Jamaica |accessdate=6 February 2015 }}</ref>
His final decades saw few new developments in his style and he often repeated or created variations on many of his earlier paintings. Abrahams described himself as an internationalist and was regarded by others as artistically a "citizen of the world".<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9655.12288|title=The artist Carl Abrahams and the cosmopolitan work of centring and peripheralizing the self⋆|first=Huon|last=Wardle|date=13 July 2015|journal=Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute|volume=21|issue=4|pages=803–819|via=Wiley Online Library|doi=10.1111/1467-9655.12288|hdl=10023/11773|hdl-access=free|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Abrahams died peacefully at his home in 2005 of cancer and a brain tumor.
==Works== *''Last Supper'' *''Destruction of Port Royal'' *''Woman I Must Be About My Father's Business'' *''Adam and Eve'' *''Thirteen Israelites'' *''The Henry Ford Show'' *''Pan and His Musicians'' *''Backyard Preacher'' *''The Hand of Columbus'' *''The Ascension'' *''Hallelujah'' *"Afro Jewess"
==Awards== *Royal Air Force (RAF) Award *New York Critics Award *Silver Musgrave Medal of the Institution of Jamaica *Order of Distinction (Jamaica) *Gold Musgrave Medal of The Institution of Jamaica (1987)
==References== {{Reflist}}
== Further reading == *Annie Paul. [https://www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-75/father-abrahams Father Carl Abrahams]. Issue 75 (September/October 2005) Caribbean Beat Magazine *Veerle Poupeye. ''Caribbean Art''. London; Thames and Hudson; 1998.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Abrahams, Carl}} Category:1911 births Category:2005 deaths Category:People from Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica Category:Artists from the British West Indies Category:Artists from Kingston, Jamaica Category:Recipients of the Musgrave Medal Category:Officers of the Order of Distinction Category:Royal Air Force personnel of World War II Category:Jamaican people of Jewish descent Category:20th-century Jamaican painters Category:20th-century Jamaican male artists Category:Jamaican male painters {{Jamaica-painter-stub}}