In a fascinating 1968 document on the genesis of art discourse in Trinidad and Tobago, Hans Guggenheim cited a local newspaper article which talked about the suitableness of the West Indies as subject matter for the artist . The article announced the first exhibition in 1944 of the newly formed Trinidad Art Society. Guggenheim summarized the argument made by the article:
“Two points are made: the first is that local subject matter favors the development of a unique style, that is, that the visual arts in Trinidad are, and can be, different because what is available to be painted looks different. The second point is that racial characteristics contribute to the uniqueness of the ‘approach of the Trinidad artist’. The stereotype that the ‘Negro races’ were gifted musically but not in the visual arts was stressed. Such ideas, remnants of a colonial tradition, have been internalized by many Trinidadians and have perhaps prevented many talented individuals from turning to painting. The development of the Negro painters in Trinidad and elsewhere, therefore, is an important aspect of the declaration of independence. The very act of painting on the part of Negroes dramatizes their victory over the social and cultural boundaries that a colonial society had invented for them.”
The business of who and what might constitute suitable subjects for art and artists was one that bedeviled early attempts at art practice in the ex-slave colonies of the West Indies. In a useful article charting the gradual transformation of colonial imagery in Jamaica art historian Krista Thompson documents the fact that when Jamaica’s first Portrait and Picture Gallery was established in 1891 (‘the first permanent display of art on the island’) “Anyone entering the gallery in the early twentieth century would have been greeted almost entirely by a pantheon of white countenances, and more specifically, by white male faces”. On the other hand the black body was a much more commonly represented photographic subject in Jamaica, with the image of the black market woman dominating tourist ads as well as being used to promote the idea of an industrious black population. Early photographs and postcards representing the island often featured black market women as their subjects so that “The realm of colonialist and tourist photography was dominated by black women and white men ruled in painting. Certainly some representations transcended such dichotomies, but for the most part racialized subjects belonged in their separate mediums of representation.”
The complete essay "Subjects Matter: The Repeating AlterNATIVE and the Expat Gaze" by Annie Paul is here (PDF)