LESTER GUNTER

Lester Gunter (1936) is a Jamaican artist. Lester Gunter, the son a goldsmith, was born in Trinity Ville, Saint Thomas, Jamaica. He was greatly influenced by Edna Manley considered the “Mother of Jamaican Art”.

He studied at the Jamaica School of Art from 1958 to 1963, the Art Students League in New York from 1968 to 1970 and the National Academy of Fine Art from 1970 to 1972, where he won the James Augustus Suydam Bronze Medal Award for figure painting. Gunter has studied under and along with artists Jacob Lawrence, Barrington Watson, Robert Brackman, Mayo Cousins, Robert Sawyers, Robert Phillipp, Hugh Gumpel and Julian Levi.

Harlem's Essie Green Galleries' inaugural gallery exhibition in December 1979 was a solo show for the artist. His works have been exhibited in several one-man shows, including the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, Gallery + in the Valley in Jamaica, West Indies, The Jamaica Contemporary Association in Kingston, St. Andrew Parrish Library, and The Institute of Jamaica. In September of 1995, the Jamaican Consulate in New York mounted his first retrospective exhibition spanning 35 years of his countrywork. Gunter's paintings are found in the Paul R. Jones Collection of American Art at the University of Alabama, and the collection of the North Carolina Central University Museum of Art.

Gunter's artwork style included landscapes, market scenes, and a series of nudes, reminiscent of his native Jamaica

From Swann Galleries Auction
Biography from Bradford's Auction Gallery (askART)