Portrait of Hugh Stollmeyer, 1939.

Portrait of Hugh Stollmeyer, 1939.

Biography

Summary

Hugh Conrad Maitland Stollmeyer was born in the Santa Cruz Valley, Trinidad on the 13th of January 1912. The influence of this lush tropical paradise is apparent in his art, both in his use of color and in his portrayal of island people. After he finished school in 1929 he joined the "Trinidad Independents", a group of writers and artists who questioned the social and artistic norms of the day. They represented an intellectual coming of age and the first break with Trinidad’s colonial status.

Hugh immigrated to the USA in 1938 and spent most of the rest of his life in or near New York City. First he lived with is brother, then in 1942 or 1943 had an apartment in Greenwich Village. His work continued to reflect Trinidad's culture, people and tropical foliage, adding the influence of artists such as Botticelli, Gauguin, Matisse, Van Gogh, Picasso, and avant garde painting in New York City.

He and his partner Authur Repkin moved to Westchester County outside the city in the early 1950’s. Hugh created extensive gardens, which became subject matter for his paintings. He also experimented with non-objective work.

He returned to Trinidad for extended periods from 1959 to 1964 and this had a profound influence on his art. In late 1960 he began producing an extraordinary series of paintings which integrated realistic treatment of tropical flowers with a looser more abstract approach to the figure and a spatially abstract, often highly patterned, backgrounds based on brightly coloured fabrics. However, by late 1962 his drinking was increasing and he did almost no painting in 1963. In February of 1964 his family finally convinced him to return to New York.

In New York his drinking moderated and he returned to painting.  However it gradually became more difficult and he ceased painting seriously in 1966.

In 1967 Hugh went to work at the Elmhurst Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, in the physiotherapy department. He viewed his work there as a kind of performance, healing through love and laughter as well as physiotherapy. He found contact with patients invigorating after the solitary pursuit of painting.

In 1971 he left the hospital to return to painting but found that he could not.  However the Ligoa Duncan Gallery in Uptown Manhattan began showing his work organizing exhibitions there and at their gallery in Paris.

In 1976 Hugh returned to Trinidad at his family's insistence and was treated for alcoholism. In 1977 he returned to New York, where he died on 12 June 1982, aged 70.