Gordon de la Mothe was born in Carriacou, Grenada in 1933. In 1958 he moved to Luton, England, studying first at Luton College of Art, then Maidstone College of Art and finally receiving an Art Teachers Diploma from the University of Liverpool. A founding member of the multi-cultural Rainbow Art Group, he was involved in the Afro-Caribbean art movement and Caribbean Teachers Association (CTA). He campaigned against racism in education and wrote on Black representation in art, publishing <em>Reconstructing the Black Image</em> in 1993, before returning to Grenada.
Artist, writer and art teacher, Gordon de la Mothe was born in Carriacou, Grenada in 1933. In 1958 he moved to Luton, England, where soon after his arrival he witnessed a series of violent attacks, which became known as the Notting Hill race riots, which began when a group of white men assaulted a white woman on the basis of her marriage to a black man. In 1960, his wife and young family joined him. However, they struggled to survive: de la Mothe took jobs as an itinerant worker, but soon realised this offered little hope for the future. He therefore decided to study part-time at Luton College of Art and Technology (1967–69), earning a living assembling cars at Vauxhall Motors. After three years, he became a full-time student on the Art Foundation course, later earning a diploma in Art and Design from Maidstone College of Art and an Art Teachers Diploma from the University of Liverpool. His thesis, entitled The Victims of Myths, contained a comparative study on the condition of slaves in the Caribbean and those of the British working class of the same period.
De la Mothe subsequently moved to Maidstone, Kent and began working as an art teacher at Hillview Secondary School for Girls, Tonbridge. He painted in his spare time, his main subjects being urban views of Maidstone and the surrounding area, such as Medway Brewery (1975, Maidstone Museum), exhibited in the Mall Galleries, London with The New English Art Club (NEAC) in 1976. De la Mothe also produced studies of people and self-portraits. Between 1974 and 1984 he exhibited in London and the South East, including with the NEAC; Tower Gallery; Royal Academy of Arts; Royal Society of British Artists; and the Black Arts Gallery. In 1978 he contributed to Afro-Caribbean Art, a large open submission exhibition organised by Drum Arts Centre at the Artists Market, London, featuring the work of many notable artists, including Frank Bowling, Althea McNish, Donald Locke, Eugene Palmer and Rudi Patterson. In 1978 de la Mothe became a founding member of the Rainbow Art Group, an organisation promoting the work of artists from different minority communities. The Rainbow Art Group undertook several exhibitions during its existence and included among its members, émigré artists: Lancelot Ribeiro, Uzo Egonu, Errol Lloyd and Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede. In the 1980s de la Mothe participated in a series of exhibitions organised by Creation for Liberation, a group of cultural activists based in Brixton, whose aim was to ‘give a serious look at the artistic work by men and women whose cultural expression not only draws from the Asian, African and Caribbean heritage but also from British and European tradition’ (Creation for Liberation).
From 1979 he was also actively involved in the Caribbean Teachers Association (CTA), campaigning against racism in education, advocating for the expansion of the curriculum to accommodate the needs of African-Caribbean students, and working to raise their attainment. De la Mothe was a pioneer in the use of images as a vehicle for multi- cultural education in England. Using his thesis as a starting point, he researched European art before the sixteenth century for images of Black people and arranged them in chronological order. This monumental work resulted in a series of illustrated lectures at London's Commonwealth Institute, on Black Images in the History of Art in 1980, which had a great impact on teachers, students and the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA)’s inspector of Multi-ethnic Education (de la Mothe 1993, p. viii). His extensive research was eventually published as a book, Reconstructing the Black Image in 1993, which aimed ‘to develop curriculum approaches and material appropriate to black students which would enhance their personal development, self-esteem, competence and understanding of society, and also enable young people from the white community to develop […] a greater understanding of the contributions made by black people to history and social development’ (de la Mothe 1993, p. 1). In 1985 de la Mothe moved to London and from 1985–87 he served as the director for the Teaching and Education Project with the CTA, returning to teaching between 1988 and 1997.
De la Mothe eventually returned to Grenada in the 1990s after over 30 years of living in England. He is currently based in Saint George's, Grenada. A major retrospective was held at the Grenada National Museum in 2004, followed by another in 2013. In 2022, a solo exhibition was held at Wardown House, Museum and Gallery, Luton. De la Mothe was awarded an OBE for his contribution to education and art in 2015. His papers from 1979–90 are held in the National Archives. His work is held in the UK public domain in the collection of Maidstone Museum, Kent which received a collection of acrylics and preparatory sketches from the artist in 2019.