Errol Lloyd was born in Lucea, Jamaica in 1943, moving to London, England to study law at the Council of Legal Education in 1963. A self-taught artist, he became a central figure of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) and, as an illustrator, he produced book cover designs and posters for London-based, Black-owned publishing companies, New Beacon Books, Allison & Busby and Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications. Lloyd was Highly Commended for the Kate Greenaway Medal (1973) for his illustrations to 'My Brother Sean' by Petronella Breinburg, the first British children’s book featuring a Black main character.
Artist, illustrator and writer, Errol Lloyd was born in Lucea, Jamaica in 1943, and moved to London, England to study law at the Council of Legal Education in 1963. A self-taught artist, he became a central figure of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM), founded in London in 1966 by Barbadian-born historian and poet, Edward Kamau Brathwaite and Trinidadian-born poet and political activist, John La Rose. The aim of CAM was to create a new sense of shared Caribbean ‘nationhood’, exchanging ideas and attempting to forge a new Caribbean aesthetic in the arts. It counted among its members prominent Jamaican artists, including sculptor Ronald Moody, painter Aubrey Williams and textile designer, Althea McNish. Over its five years of existence, CAM organised talks, discussions, conferences, recitals and art exhibitions, providing an opportunity to explore new directions in Caribbean arts and to build a bridge between West Indian migrants and those who came to be known as ‘black Britons’. Reflecting on his career as an artist, Lloyd declared that ‘I was self-taught and worked in isolation until I was introduced to [the] Caribbean Artists Movement [...]. I met older artists like the sculptor Ron Moody and they acted like role models for me. From there my work developed’ (Cobbinah 2007). In 1978, Lloyd was among the co-founders of the Rainbow Art Group, an organisation promoting the work of artists from different ethnic backgrounds which presented several exhibitions during the time of its existence and included among its members émigré artists Lancelot Ribeiro, Uzo Egonu, Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede and Gordon V. de La Mothe. in 1987 Lloyd wrote the catalogue introduction for Creation For Liberation – 4th Open Exhibition by Black Artists at London's Brixton Village.
Lloyd’s own practice has focussed on the Black British experience in Britain and encompasses sculpture, figurative and abstract painting, and illustration. He has received numerous commissions to create busts of prominent West Indian figures such as CLR James, writer and political activist; Sir Alexander Bustamante, Prime Minister of Jamaica; Garfield Sobers, cricketer; Lord Pitt, politician; and John LaRose, poet and publisher. As an illustrator, Lloyd produced book cover designs and posters for London Black-owned publishers, New Beacon Books, Allison & Busby and Bogle L’Ouverture Publications. For the latter, he created the cover illustration for its first published title, Walter Rodney’s The Groundings With My Brothers (1969). Lloyd was Highly Commended for the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal in 1973 for his illustrations for My Brother Sean by Petronella Breinburg, the first British children’s book featuring a Black main character. The original illustrations for the book were exhibited at London's Commonwealth Institute the same year. Lloyd was interviewed then by the Guardian, declaring that ‘Without claiming any hostility from the white community in this country, I should say my art is almost totally supported by black people. That’s purely a question of exposure, and probably also the kind of things I paint. I imagine I would be just as offensive to the black bourgeoisie as to the white’ (Dix 1973, p. 13). Lloyd subsequently wrote and illustrated his own stories. His first novel, Many Rivers to Cross (1995), was nominated for the Carnegie Medal. A number of his books subsequently appeared in foreign editions and Many Rivers to Cross (1995) was also published in braille. Lloyd's children's work also includes plays for the Tricycle (now Kiln) Theatre in northwest London, the Oxford Playhouse, and Carib Theatre. Lloyd was also a member of the Minorities' Arts Advisory Service (MAAS) and Art Editor for their inter-cultural magazine, Artrage. He also taught Advanced Painting at the Camden Arts Centre, London and served on the Visual Arts Panel for Arts Council England
Errol Lloyd’s artwork has been shown in various contexts, from group shows at the Commonwealth Institute (1971), and Leicestershire Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester (1986) to Transforming the Crown: African, Asian and Caribbean Artists in Britain, 1966–1996 at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (1997). A solo exhibition was held at the Jamaican High Commission, London in 1978. More recently, in 2022, alongside Caribbean émigré painters, Paul Dash and John Lyons, Lloyd organised the exhibition Paint Like the Swallow Sings Calypso Cambridge at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge. The show explored the complex historical and cultural significance of carnival, mixing the artists’ own depictions of its modern iteration with examples of the carnivalesque from the collections of Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum and from Kettle’s Yard, by artists including David Bomberg, Barbara Hepworth, Goya and Picasso. Lloyd's paintings included Notting Hill Carnival, based on photographs and sketches of people at Notting Hill Carnival that Lloyd had made over ten years before. A large retrospective, featuring works from the 1970s to the present day, was held at 198 Gallery in London in 2023. In the UK public domain, Errol Lloyd’s portrait of Kamau Brathwaite, commissioned by Pembroke College, Cambridge University, is on permanent display in the college's Hall, which houses portraits of distinguished alumni.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Errol Lloyd]
Publications related to [Errol Lloyd] in the Ben Uri Library