After 72 years as an artist, Boscoe Holder is still consumed by painting.
He spends the better part of his day sitting in his studio, conveying his
thoughts onto the canvas.

Most people know him through his work that hangs in art galleries around the
world and has been sold for huge sums to private collectors.

But there is a secret Boscoe Holder in the paintings that few people have seen.
Inside his studio tucked away behind his Woodford Street, Newtown house are
decades of paintings, some of which have travelled the world and returned home;
others have never left.

They reflect the evolution of the artist, from his early styles in the Thirties
to his more practiced strokes in the Nineties.

"My paintings are like old friends," Holder said, in his colonial-style English.

His annex is cluttered with what seemed like thousands of canvases representing
Trinidad lifestyle - children playing in the road, women in various stages of
undress, the market place, a coconut vendor… The shelves, the floor, even the
chairs, held his 'friends', some famous, like his portraits of Wendy
Fitzwilliam; many are unknowns.

Among some of his earliest works were "The harbour Scheme" painted in the
mid-1930s, "Coco Payol" (1943), and "Coconuts" (1948).
The most popular subjects, however were beautiful black women, including one he
had completed that very day - a portrait of a slender woman in white lacy
pantaloons.

"I love painting Caribbean people, especially the women, because they are so
decorative," Holder remarked. "I capture all of the Caribbean in my work, the
poverty, the strong black theme, the nature and the beauty."
Using oil and acrylic, his paintings are broad and bold, the strokes refined.
Most of his subjects appear life-like, in motion, not posed. They are never
looking outward, their heads turned gracefully sideways, or their backs to the
observer.

"Nobody's mannerisms are the same," Holder explained. "Each individual is unique
and when you can capture that on canvas, you have captured their essence."
Some of Holder's older works, which he would have liked to show, have long been
sold to private collectors.

Among them are 'Steelband boys in white', 'Mona Baptiste', and 'Lady with pink
headtie'; all are featured on the Internet.

Talking about them spurred him to recall the beginning of his career when he
exhibited at the fish market on French Street in Woodbrook.

There Englishman Lord Hailes bought one of Holder's pieces, that of a man with a
guitar.

Lord Hailes kept the painting privately for many years, and eventually donated
it to the National Museum during the 60s, where two of Holder's works are
displayed.
"What most people don't know about that painting is that it's Fitzroy Coleman
depicted there," Holder said. Coleman, famous for his talented fingers on the
guitar.
"We were backstage at a show and I painted him while he was in the dressing
room."

Sifting through many of his works, a faraway smile stretching across Holder's
face.
"Looking at a painting is like taking a trip," he said. "When I look at each of
my paintings, I can remember the sight, the taste, the smell, every detail of my
life on the day it was painted. I would say it's more like déjà vu."
Now 79, the artist credits his success to the strength of his family.
"If it wasn't for the happiness of my family, I would have been in the mad
house," he exclaimed.

He credits his mother, Louise Defrense Holder with most of his success. She gave him the confidence to live his dreams. Of French stock, she was strong and
artistic. She nurtured her children's ambitions to the neglect of her own.
"She was a consummate woman," he said, "she could do everything! Anything you needed to do you could ask her and she would set you straight."
Well known though he is for his professional dancing, piano style, and even
costuming, Holder said it was clear to him from the start that painting would be
his forté.

"I've done thousands of paintings, and each one is the same, each a release."
"Some days it flows and other days you have to push it, but I was born a
painter."