10 things you didn't know about David Boxer

David Boxer is known and celebrated as Jamaica's premier art
historian, arbiter and leading authority on Jamaican art. It is said in
the art circles that a thumbs up from Boxer can mean a promising career
for an aspiring artist, while a thumbs down could bring a premature end
to one's career.

The revered artist is described as macabre by
some and brilliant by others. His work and eye have made him invaluable
to the art community when it comes to validating authentic Jamaican art
work. He has uncovered and identified dozens of fake Jamaican works, and
he has become the principal authentication expert in the country. He
says fake Taino stone carvings, fake Huies, fake Pottingers, fake
Lesters, and fake Milton Georges, are the most common, but he has also
seen fake Manley sculptures and drawings, fake Carl Abrahams' paintings,
a fake Roberta Stoddart, and fake Boxers. He advises collectors to have
potential purchases fully authenticated.

Today, Outlook shares 10 things previously not known about the iconic Dr David Boxer.

1.Boxer was born on St Patrick's Day, March 17, 1946. He's of the opinion that he was probably conceived in mid-June 1945, at the very end of World War II. He has always considered himself his parents' 'celebration' baby! Born with a serious heart ailment, he was informed seven years ago that the life expectancy of someone with that condition was 30 years. He has clearly beaten the odds.

2. He is one of only 12 Jamaicans from the past two centuries to be included in the first major Biographical Dictionary of the Caribbean, published in 2003. Other Jamaican entries covered are Nanny of the Maroons, Marcus Garvey, Sir Alexander Bustamante, Norman Manley, Edna Manley, Michael Manley, Bob Marley, Grace Jones, Harry Belafonte, Rex Nettleford, and Stuart Hall.

3. Boxer can trace his English ancestry back to John of Gaunt and the Plantagenet kings of England. One of his prized possessions is a coin from the reign of Edward III, father of John of Gaunt and hence a direct ancestor. He is also a direct descendant of the Boxer Ghost of Hampton. The famous ghost of Hampton is, in fact, Boxer's great grandfather - Ernest Boxer. He is truly out of many one as he also traces his roots back to his Haitian and African ancestry - as a descendent of the Dussard (mixed race) family of Haiti and of Africans brought to Jamaica as slaves.

4. He recently donated an original copy of the Illustrated London News, a newspaper from 1855, recounting Admiral Boxer's death and featuring two 'eye witness' drawings of the funeral procession from the admiral's ship, The Jason, anchored in the harbour, to the grave site in the hills above the harbour to the Hampton Museum.

5. He is a major collector and boasts a fine personal collection of Jamaican art. The collection of Intuitives is particularly treasured and is to form the basis of his proposed Intuitive Eye Museum. He is also credited with defining the Intuitive genre in Jamaican art. What is not well known is that he has perhaps the finest collection of early Jamaican photography in the world! A part of that collection - The David Boxer Collection - has just been published by Macmillans of London. The authors of the book are David Boxer and famous art writer Edward Lucie Smith.

6. He is a specialist on the work of Francis Bacon and is the earliest scholar to have written and defended a doctoral dissertation on the famous English artist, highly recognised as one of the greatest painters of the 20th century. Boxer spent two weeks in London interviewing Bacon in August of 1974.

7. Self-described as "A painter of existential angst and deep philosophical content", he got his first commission as an artist at the age of 17, to design the label for a household cleaner! The product was called Basol and he was commissioned by E.A. Foster-Davis, the commission agent.

8.He notes that one of the great embarrassments of his life was to read in the star how the card game of bridge had caused the break-up of his parents' marriage and their divorce. Boxer gravitated towards the "easier and more relaxing game of Kalooki". This, he played regularly with Michael and Glynne Manley and the great art collector Wallace Campbell.

9. Boxer wrote an opera when he was 15 years old. He composed mainly works in a Beethovenian vein for piano. In one Music Teachers of Jamaica Association concert, he performed Beethoven and a work by DeBarre. Only his music teacher, Myrtle Robins-Lew, knew that DeBarre was a pseudonym for David Boxer. After that concert, David went on to win the first prize in the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission's Piano Performance Competition in 1964.

10. Probably the only person who has ever fallen asleep while being interviewed live on JBC television! Three generations of Jamaicans know Boxer as the intense 'Baconian' artist and curator. Few know that in the early '70s Boxer was far better known as the whiz film director of JBC Television's Public Affairs Department. He was best known for his documentaries on Jamaican art. His credits include three separate films on the late Edna Manley, considered by many as the mother of Jamaica's art.

- CFJ