Ronald Moody (12 August 1900 – 6 February 1984) was a Jamaican-born sculptor, specialising in wood carvings. His work features in collections including the National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain in London, as well as the National Gallery of Jamaica. He was the brother of anti-racist campaigner Harold Moody and award-winning physiologist Ludlow Moody.
Biography Moody was born Ronald Clive Moody in 1900 in Kingston, Jamaica, into a well-off professional family. He attended Calabar College, Jamaica, moving to England in 1923 to study dentistry at King's College London, obtaining his degree in 1930."Ronald Moody: Sculpture and interwar Britain", The Equiano Centre, UCL, 16 June 2015. In London, he was inspired by the British Museum's collection of non-Western art and decided to become a sculptor. Early experiments with clay led him to teach himself how to carve. He produced his first carved figure in oak wood. Entitled Wohin (meaning in German "where to?”, the name of a song by Schubert),Manheim, James, "Moody, Ronald 1900–1984", Contemporary Black Biography, 2002. Encyclopedia.com. that sculpture was bought by Marie Seton in 1935.Indepth Arts News: "Ronald Moody 1900 – 1984: A Reputation Restored", absolutearts.com, 2002.
Among Moody's most famous works from this period was his great female head, Midonz (1937),Midonz at The African & Asian Visual Artists Archive. which he described as "the goddess of transmutation"."Ronald Moody | Midonz | 1937", Tate. By the late 1930s, he had accumulated an impressive collection of work and had a solo show in Paris, France. The success of the show encouraged him to move to Paris in 1938. That year, 12 major sculptures were sent to the Harmon Foundation in the United States to be included in exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Dallas Museum of Art.Bridget R. Cooks, Exhibiting Blackness: African Americans and the American Art Museum, University of Massachusetts Press, 2011, pp. 26, 28, 29, 30, 34. Moody's success in France was cut short by the onset of the Second World War. In 1940, two days before Paris fell to the Germans, he was forced to flee the city, abandoning his sculptures.Ronald Moody - Artist biography, Tate website. (They were retrieved after the war, along with the works that had been sent to the US for exhibition.)
After having escaped from Paris, Moody travelled through occupied France, across the Pyrenees into Spain, and eventually arrived back in England in October 1941. His Paris success followed him to London, where he resumed his work after the war and had a one-man show in May 1946 at the Arcade Gallery, off Bond Street."Black British artists who have risen to prominence post-1945", Black British History Extract 2. In 1946 he cast a bronze head of his eldest brother Harold Moody (1882–1947, founder of the League of Coloured Peoples)."Harold Moody", National Portrait Gallery, reference 6380.
From 1950 until the early 1960s regular London exhibitions brought Ronald Moody a growing presence on the British art scene. In 1964 he created a sculpture called Savacou for the University of the West Indies (UWI),Petrine Archer website. a stylised depiction of a bird, which is sited on the UWI campus at Mona, Jamaica. He is among those artists associated with the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) that was founded in London (1966–72).Lloyd, Errol, "Caribbean Artists Movement (1966–1972)", Windrush Stories, British Library, 4 October 2018.
Moody died in London in 1984, aged 83. His niece Cynthia Moody, who inherited his estate, thereafter devoted herself to documenting and promoting her uncle's work.Anne Walmsley, "Cynthia Moody obituary", The Guardian, 15 July 2013.
Honours and legacy In 1977 Moody was given the Jamaican Musgrave Gold Medal, and in 1980 the Centenary Medal by the Institute of Jamaica, although no major exhibitions of his work took place on his native island during his lifetime.Eddie Chambers, "Chapter One: The Pioneering Generation of Caribbean Artists", Black Artists in British Art: A History since the 1950s, London: I.B.Tauris, 2014.
In 2000 the first substantial exhibition of his work took place at the National Gallery of Jamaica."Ronald Moody", Diaspora Artists. His work featured in the exhibition No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960–1990 held at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London, from 10 July 2015 to 24 January 2016."Ronald Moody", No Colour Bar website.
Moody crater on Mercury was named after him in November 2008."Moody Sculpts Mercury's Surface", MESSENGER, 14 April 2009."PIA12044: Moody Sculpts Mercury's Surface", Photojournal, NASA.
Selected works Wohin, 1934 Johanaan (Peace), 1936"Johanaan", The African & Asian Visual Artists Archive. Midonz (Goddess of Transmutation), 1937 Tacet, 1938"Tacet", The African & Asian Visual Artists Archive. Sleeper Mask, 1943 Dr Harold Moody, 1946"Dr. Harold Moody", The African & Asian Visual Artists Archive. Savacou, 1964 Time Hiroshima, 1967 Paul Robeson, 1968"Paul Robeson", The African & Asian Visual Artists Archive.
References
External links
"Papers of Ronald Moody 1900–94", Tate. Guy Brett, "A reputation restored: The rediscovery of sculptor Ronald Moody", Tate blog, 1 April 2003 (a revised version of article that appeared in TATE magazine, March/April 2003, Issue 4). Includes Val Wilmer photograph "Moody with Johanaan, 1936, in Fleming Close Studio, Fulham, 1963".
National Portrait Gallery. NPG 6380 Manheim, James, "Moody, Ronald 1900–1984", Contemporary Black Biography, 2002. Encyclopedia.com. Gemma Romain, "Ronald Moody: Archival explorations of a Black Jamaican artist in interwar London", Media Diversified, 5 April 1015.