Errol Lloyd
b. 1943, Jamaica
Errol Lloyd (b. 1943, Jamaica) is an artist and writer, who has been based in London since the 1960’s where he studied law, completing his bar finals in 1974. By this time, he had executed commissioned busts of Sir Alexander Bustamante, past Prime Minister of Jamaica, Garfield Sobers, cricketer, the writer and historian C.L.R. James, the politician Lord Pitt, writer and publisher John La Rose and poet Linton Kwesi Johnson. His paintings have been widely exhibited, and currently a number of his paintings are on show in the group exhibition Paint Like the Sparrow Sings Calypso at Kettle’s Yard Gallery, Cambridge, on the theme of carnival. In 2019 he was commissioned by Pembroke College, Cambridge University, to paint a portrait of their distinguished alumnus, Kamau Brathwaite, which now hangs in their dining hall.
Now well known as an author and illustrator of children’s literature, he has written over twenty children’s books and was Highly Commended for the Kate Greenway Medal (1973) for his illustrations of My Brother Sean by Petronella Breinburg, the first British children’s book featuring a Black main character. His novel for young Adults, Many Rivers to Cross, (1995) was nominated for the Carnegie Medal. A number of his books have appeared in foreign editions and his novel, Many Rivers to Cross, in a braille edition.
A central figure of the Caribbean Artist’s Movement (CAM), 1966 -1972, he went on to produce many books cover designs and posters for the newly established London Black-owned publishing companies, New Beacon Books and Bogle L’Ouverture Publications and Allison & Busby. For four years he ran the Minorities’ Arts Advisory Service (MAAS) and served as Art Editor of their inter-cultural magazine, Artrage.