Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1945 Trinidad and Tobago, British Empire (now Trinidad and Tobago)

Year of Migration to the UK: 1954

Biography

Artist Anthony Jadunath was born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1945. His grandfather had emigrated from India, and Jadunath's early years were marked by displacement and hardship. In 1954, aged nine, he moved to England with his mother, following the death of his father, who had served in the Navy. Settling into a new environment proved difficult, as he experienced abuse from his stepfather and endured periods in various institutions. By the age of fifteen, overwhelmed by his circumstances, he attempted to take his own life. This led to his confinement in a psychiatric hospital, where he first discovered art as a means of expression and relief. Encouraged by London County Council social worker and poet, E. R. Braithwaite, he eventually returned home to his mother, and he continued to pursue his artistic practice.

Jadunath’s passion for art became a driving force throughout his life. He initially worked on industrial jobs to support himself but dedicated his free time to painting and sculpture. His work was deeply personal, an outlet for the emotions and struggles he faced. He often favoured pen and ink drawings on large rolls of paper, bought at a modest price, and later expanded his practice to include painting and etching. Over time, his artistic output took on an obsessive nature, with recurring imagery reflecting both his inner turmoil and his engagement with the world around him.

His first exhibition was held at Fairfield Halls in Croydon in 1967 when he was 22. Throughout the 1970s, he became increasingly involved in community art projects, working with children at the Barbican Centre and the People’s Gallery. With support from Croydon Council, he took an etching course at Croydon College of Art, where he met sculptor Anna Panchenko. It was through Panchenko that he was introduced to Victor Musgrave, founder of the Outsider Archive. Musgrave recognised the strength of Jadunath’s work and acquired over twenty pieces for the collection, which he had established with Monika Kinley in 1981, under the Tate Gallery’s aegis. Though the Outsider Archive was later dissolved, two of Jadunath’s works were ultimately incorporated into the Outsider Art Collection at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester.

Jadunath’s work was deeply influenced by his personal struggles. He frequently employed the colour red, which he saw as symbolic of suffering, power, and aggression. His compositions ranged from hallucinatory, cartoon-like figures—often reminiscent of Picasso’s expressive distortions—to pieces imbued with dark, unsettling undertones (Anthony Swords 2008). His subjects ranged from animals—including rabbits, cats, and elephants and farmyard creatures—to human figures and spiritual themes. His engagement with religious and mystical imagery was reflected in recurring motifs, such as his depiction of Cuthbert Praying, a work inspired by the eponymous saint. There was also an interplay in his art between playfulness and raw emotional intensity, and he often explored themes of death and turmoil. His unique visual language developed over decades, and his work has been compared, in its rhythmic, patterned structures, to both outsider art traditions and the aesthetics of naïve or folk painting. In addition to his participation in the Outsider Archive, Jadunath’s work gained exposure in several exhibitions. In 1978, he was included in Afro-Caribbean Art, an open submission exhibition organised by the Drum Arts Centre at the Artists Market in London. This exhibition showcased the work of Black British artists at a time when they remained marginalised within the mainstream art world. Jadunath continued to exhibit throughout the 1980s, participating in all of the Creation for Liberation exhibitions, as well as showing at the People’s Gallery and Bethesda Chapel in Gloucestershire. In 1985, his work featured in New Horizons, at the Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, and, the following year, he was one of four Caribbean artists featured in an exhibition at Chelsea Library’s Long Gallery, opened by newscaster, Trevor MacDonald, as part of the national Caribbean Focus programme. Jadunath's reputation as an outsider artist was further cemented with his participation in Outsiders & Co, a major exhibition held at west London gallery, England & Co., in 1996.

Despite his growing recognition, Jadunath's personal hardships did not ease. In 2002, he was hospitalised with gangrene in his toe. Without his prior knowledge, his leg was amputated. Five years later, in 2007, his other leg was also removed due to a similar condition. This left him wheelchair-bound, but he continued to create art for as long as he was physically able. Jadunath’s later years saw continued exhibitions, with a major display at the Contemporary Urban Centre in Liverpool in 2008. His final solo exhibition, Jadunath: RED, took place in 2009 at New Art Exchange in Nottingham, reinforcing his lifelong association with the emotional and symbolic power of the colour. Anthony Jadunath died in London, England in 2009. In the UK public domain, his work is represented in the collections of The Whitworth and Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, while letters received from artist, Jean Dubuffet, are held in the National Art Library archives, V&A.

Related books

Eddie Chambers, Black Artists in British Art: A History since the 1950s (London: I. B. Tauris, 2014)
Dionne Ligoure, ‘The Novas Scarman Group’, London Mission, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, 2008, Vol 38, p. 15
John Maizels, 'Anthony Jadunath', Raw Vision, Spring 2007, pp. 50-53
David A. Bailey, Sonia Boyce, and Ian Baucom eds., Shades of Black: Assembling Black Arts in 1980s Britain (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005)

Related organisations

Croydon College of Art (student)
Falmouth College of Art (student)

Selected exhibitions

Jadunath: RED, New Art Exchange, Nottingham (2009)
Red, Contemporary Urban Centre, Liverpool (2008)
Ingeniouscreator, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham (1997)
Outsiders & co, England & Co, London (1996)
Outsiders & Co, England & Co Gallery, London (1996)
Let the Canvas Come to Life with Dark Faces, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry (1990)
Contemporary Art by Afro-Caribbean Artists, 198 Gallery, London (1988)
Creation for Liberation - Open Exhibition Art by Black Artists, Brixton Village (1987)
Caribbean Expressions in Britain, an Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Leicestershire Museum and Art Gallery (1986)
Creation For Liberation –Open Exhibition by Black Artists, Brixton Village, London (1985)
New Horizons, GLC Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, London (1985)
Creation For Liberation –Open Exhibition by Black Artists, Brixton Village, London (1984)
Afro Caribbean Art, organised by Drum Arts Centre, Artists Market, London (1978)
Fairfield Halls, Croydon (1967)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Anthony Jadunath]

Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.

Anthony Jadunath artist