Stanley Greaves

Stanley Greaves (born 1934) is a Guyanese painter and writer who is one of the Caribbean's most distinguished artists. He was awarded the Guyana Prize for Literature for his first poetry collection, Horizons: Selected Poems 1969–1998.

Writing in 1995 at the time of a retrospective exhibition to celebrate Greaves's 60th birthday, Rupert Roopnarine stated: "It may be that no major Caribbean artist of our time has been more fecund and versatile than Stanley Greaves of Guyana." Greaves himself has said of his own creativity:

I still don't talk about myself as making art! Other people do that. I am a maker of things. In the early days, I found empty matchboxes, cigarette boxes, bits of string, wire, empty boot-polish tins, whatever, and made things. Drawing was just another activity, and it still is. My favorite medium is still wood, of course. My hitherto secret preoccupation with writing poems, which has now come to light, is another form of making. Recently at the University of Birmingham, where I did a reading, I was asked if the paintings influenced the poetry, and I said, "No, they come from the same source."

Biography Greaves was born in Georgetown, Guyana. He studied art in Guyana with Edward Burrowes in the Working Peoples' Art Class (1948–61)

Work as an artist Greaves is primarily a painter but has worked in several different media: sculpture, ceramics and graphics. He was awarded the Guyana national honour of the Golden Arrow of Achievement in 1975. He has exhibited at national level, winning several prizes, and has had one-man shows. He represented Guyana twice at the São Paulo Art Biennial and once at the Medellín bienniale in Colombia. He has had major exhibitions in the United Kingdom (in 1999 his work was shown in the landmark exhibition curated by Gottfried Donkor, The Elders, alongside that of Brother Everald Brown of Jamaica), His 2009 collection, The Poems Man, was also published by Peepal Tree Press. Haiku, the third poetry book by Greaves, was published in 2015. Each contains pen and ink drawings.

Greaves co-authored, with Anne Walmsley, Art in the Caribbean: An Introduction, published in 2010 by New Beacon Books, and launched at the October Gallery in London. He has also collaborated with Akima Mc Pherson of the University of Guyana on a series of articles in the Sunday Stabroek about individual works in the Guyana National Collection.

Personal life Greaves was married to Barbara Klien and they had four children. They were divorced.

Greaves then married to the painter Alison Chapman-Andrews.

Both have died.

Selected awards 1975: Golden Arrow of Achievement, Guyana. 1979: Fulbright Award 1994: Gold medal, Santo Domingo Biennale of Painting (for triptych There Is a Meeting Here Tonight) 2002: Guyana Prize for Literature for best first book of poems (Horizons: Selected Poems 1969–1998) 2014: Guyana National Lifetime Award for Art 2017: Gold Medal First Prize (painting) Guyana National Art & Craft Competition