Chesley Trott’s sculptures, beautifully carved from wood, bronze or concrete, have made his works among the most recognised in Bermuda. Two abstract pieces in particular, both created when he was in his 70s, marked two of the most significant episodes in the Island’s history and underlined his status as one of the Island’s most important and respected artists.
When Voices Rise, a tall, raw bronze sculpture commemorating the 1959 Theatre Boycott that effectively ended racial segregation in Bermuda, was erected in Wesley Park, Hamilton in 2009 near the site of the old Island Theatre. It is named after Errol Williams’ acclaimed documentary about the boycott.
A year later, We Arrive was unveiled in Barr’s Bay Park to mark the 175th anniversary of the arrival of the American boat Enterprise in 1835 and a Bermuda court’s historic ruling that the 72 slaves aboard were free. Another major work, Bermuda Nature, an intricate seven-foot depiction of Bermuda’s reefs carved from one piece of Bermuda cedar, greets visitors at the L. F. Wade International Airport.
A working artist all his life, Chesley Trott was born in St. George’s on June 4, 1930, the son of Harold and Mary Trott. His father, an engineer at the old St. George’s Hotel, died when Chesley was just eight-weeks-old.
His mother, a teacher at East End School, bought him his first paint set when he was 10. He recalls winning a painting competition as a youngster and then took painting lessons from his aunt, Gertrude Outerbridge.
After graduating from The Berkeley Institute in 1949, he began teaching at Harrington Sound Primary School. He gained his teacher’s certificate after studying at Teacher’s College in Hamilton, Ontario (1952-1953) and at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario (1953-1954). By the mid-1960s, he realised he wanted to specialise in art and spent four summers studying at the Ontario College of Art (now the Ontario College of Art and Design) in Toronto to obtain a Teaching Certificate in Art.
Trott originally worked primarily as a painter, creating landscapes of local scenes with wide sweeps of high colour, but he soon found he preferred the more intimate and multi-sensual experience of working in wood.
He began by carving small animals and showed one of the early sculptures to Charles Lloyd Tucker. Tucker, the established black Bermudian artist of his day, recommended that he join the Bermuda Society of Arts (BSoA) and generously offered to mount a two-man show with him in 1967. The show featured an abstract cedar piece by Trott called Marriage, which caused something of a scandal at the time as it depicted an entwined naked couple.
Artist and writer Joy Bluck Waters was among those who visited the show and was impressed with his work. However she felt he needed further experience of studying abroad, and recommended him to Sir James Pearman, who provided him with a one-year scholarship to study at Ealing College of Art, in London, England in 1969-70. There he experimented with plywood, plastics, printmaking and photography. On his return, he was commissioned by the Summer Arts Festival to create his first public sculpture. The large painted plywood work, Coral Womb, was installed outside City Hall but no longer exists.
In 1970, he began a long career as a high school art teacher, teaching at the Bermuda Technical Institute, Prospect School for Boys, Robert Crawford School and finally, Warwick Secondary School, where he taught for 22 years.
After his retirement from teaching in 1992 he was offered space at the Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard by then curator Michael Hutley, becoming one of the Centre’s resident artists. Trott’s studio became a popular destination for locals and tourists alike to watch him at work or to attend one of his many classes.
Describing his work for a Bermuda Biennial exhibition, he wrote: “My sculptures are visual expressions of my hopes, dreams, experiences and interests. I try to formulate out of wood, bronze and concrete my thoughts and ideas concerning plants, shapes, human bodies and animals that have made an impression on me. I often use abstract shapes in order to express the essence of that thought or idea.”
He once said: “I am not faithful to any type of wood.” He works with Bermuda cedar, fiddlewood, silk oak (also known as white cedar), mahogany, ebony and teak. Dr. Edward Harris of the National Museum of Bermuda once gave him teak from the old Watford Bridge and Chesley transformed it into a series of flamenco-style dancers.
In 1982, Bermudian painter Diana Amos introduced him to the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he initially enrolled in watercolour classes. Soon, he discovered the Institute foundry and tried his hand at bronze casting. Finding it more malleable than wood, it gave him new options for movement and he returned regularly to the artists’ colony, creating a series of figures with stretched and wildly contorted limbs.
Even after retirement, Trott continued to teach, holding regular workshops for seniors, prisoners and mentoring emerging artists. In 1970, when asked for advice on setting up a wood sculpting training scheme at Casemates Prison (now Westgate Correctional Facility), he volunteered until a suitable teacher could be found and ended up doing the job for more than 30 years. He regarded sculpture as ideal for prisoners as it is a physical activity that demands the use of the brain as well as muscles. He likens sculpture to a sport where you need to combine mind and body to obtain the best results.
Chesley has exhibited regularly in Bermuda since 1967. His major solo exhibitions have included Chesley Trott: Sculptor & Mentor, a major retrospective at the Bermuda National Gallery in 1999, and three exhibitions at Masterworks Gallery (1995, 1996 and 1999).
His work was selected for the Bacardi Biennial exhibition at the Bermuda National Gallery in 1998, 2000 and 2002, and he has been part of group shows at the Bermuda Society of Arts with Charles Lloyd Tucker (1967), Shirley James and Joan Forbes (1976, 1980 and 1985), Gwen (Robinson) Cann (1972), and Sherrie Door, Michael Jones and Neville Trott (1990).
In 1976, his work was selected for the Carifesta arts festival in Jamaica and in 2001, he was among the artists featured at the Bermuda Connections exhibition at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C.
He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bermuda Arts Council in 1997, an MBE in the New Year’s Honours list, 2008, and was presented with an Award of Excellence in The Bermudian magazine’s 2010 Best of Bermuda Awards. In 2009, he was awarded the Bermuda National Trust’s Preservation Award, along with the Corporation of Hamilton, for his sculpture When Voices Rise.
He was also honoured by the Generations Center in Princeton, New Jersey as one of 100 Positive Men of Color, in recognition of his “exemplary lifestyle and betterment of others”.
In addition to his art, Chesley is a successful amateur horticulturalist, and a member of the American Orchid Society. A keen sportsman, he was an accomplished tennis player and took up golf when Port Royal Golf Club opened next to his Southampton home, playing regularly into his 80s.
He married Jean Dowling, a talented smocker and embroiderer, in 1961. They are the parents of three children, Chet (a jeweller and musician), Maria (a computer engineer) and Arthur (who died in 2007), who followed in his father’s artistic footsteps, working in glass and wood.
