Frank Walter

Frank Walter (11 September 1926 – 11 February 2009), born Francis Archibald Wentworth Walter, was an Antiguan artist, sculptor, photographer, composer, writer, and philosopher.

Always shy and reserved, he became a recluse in later life so that he could devote himself to the pursuit of art.

Walter has achieved posthumous recognition as one of the Caribbean's most significant artists.

Walter produced paintings that dealt with landscape, portraiture, and identity, as well as abstract explorations of nuclear energy and the universe.

His portraits, both real and imagined, include a ballerina's legs in African Genealogy; Hitler in Dipsomaniac; Walter himself as Christ on the Cross; and Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales as Adam and Eve.

Frank Walter was born in Antigua on September 11, 1926.

He studied at the Antigua Grammar School, where he excelled in Latin, science, agriculture and arts.

Impressed by his abilities, Walter's tutors encouraged him to pursue a degree in medicine or law.

Walter wanted to study agriculture.

Walter was raised by elderly family matriarchs and learned from oral histories at a young age that his ancestors included both aristocratic European slave owners and enslaved people of African descent.

During Walter's youth, Antigua was a society divided along racial lines, and the reality of mixed-race families created outside of marriage was largely considered private knowledge and often lost through the generations.

In his youth, Walter's education and professional trajectory defied the statistical challenges facing young men of color in 1930s Antigua, and the identity that he constructed was heavily influenced by his awareness of his aristocratic European forebears.

Later in life, Walter became tormented by his descent from white slave owners, enslaved women, and illegitimate mixed-race children.

Walter was the first person of colour to break through the race barrier to work in the upper tier of Antigua's agricultural industry.

When he was promoted to the role of manager in 1948 at the age of 22 by mentor and Director Sir Alexander Moody-Stuart, Walter became the first to work as an equal among whites in the Antiguan Sugar Syndicate.

Sugar was the source of socio-economic power at that point in Antigua's history, and Walter's capabilities earned him the respect of his peers.

Walter was offered the opportunity to manage the entire Antiguan Sugar Syndicate in 1953, but he turned down this job to embark on what was intended to be a ten-year industrial Grand Tour of Great Britain and Europe.

He was motivated by a desire to engage new technologies to alleviate the poverty of his fellow black countrymen, and wanted to introduce the latest European and British innovation in mining and agriculture to Antigua.

From 1953 to 1961, Walter spent eight years traveling in Europe and the UK struggling with a race-based caste system that relegated him to the menial role of unskilled laborer.

During an interview for his first job in London, he proudly stated his role as manager.

The employer rebuffed, "We don't have tropical sugar plantations in England", and offered him a job to clean the floors.

Walter suffered from poverty resulting from subsistence wages, but continued to pursue his academic interests by studying in Europe's metropolitan libraries.

During this period, Walter actively researched his family history and studied various aristocratic family trees.

He became obsessed with his heritage, inventing connections to the regents of Britain and Europe—crowning himself as the 7th Prince of the West Indies, Lord of Follies and the Ding-a-Ding Nook.

It is interesting to note that Follies and Ding-a-Ding Nook are the names of plantations owned by his white Antiguan ancestors.

The complexities of Walter's mixed-race identity and his frustrations with postcolonial society became increasingly apparent during his eight years in Europe and the UK.

However, painting, writing, and time spent in the natural world provided solace, and memories of these environments were the subject of much of his art for the next sixty years of his life.

In the late 1960s, Walter became involved in politics and wrote manifestos for the Antigua and Barbuda National Democratic Party.

When Walter arrived in Antigua in 1961, the sugar industry was on the brink of collapse.

He relocated to the nearby island of Dominica, and applied for and received a land grant from the government.

He named his 25-acre agricultural estate Mount Olympus and spent five years clearing the land by hand to create a sustainable and productive acreage.

He selectively removed the canopy of bois diable trees to allow sunlight and air for fruit trees and vegetables.

Using kilns, he repurposed these cleared materials as charcoal to make a viable local energy source he shared with his neighbors.

During this time, Walter continued to write poetry and prose, and also began to sculpt figures using wood harvested from his estate in a style that was likely inspired by the traditions of the Caribbean Arawak and African Dogon peoples.

Once Mount Olympus was prepared for planting in 1968, the government confiscated it from Walter.

He was bereft at his loss and returned to Antigua.

In 1971, he ran and was defeated by his relation, Sir George Walter, in Antigua's race for prime minister.

Frank Walter chose to retire from public life and dedicate himself to his art practice in small studios in central St. John's. He worked as a photographer and a painter during this period, selling mostly small Polaroid photographs and tiny paintings of letters of the alphabet and landscape to tourists.

No one knew of his larger-scale abstract and figurative paintings, which were done in secret, and stored for a large-scale exhibition that he planned but was never realized.

In 1993, Walter designed and built a house and art studio in the picturesque countryside above Falmouth Harbour, where he lived until his death in 2009 in peaceful isolation.