–presents works of national prizewinners, December 2011 to January 2012
PAINTINGS and sculpture from the National Collection by the doyen of Guyanese art, Philip Moore, have been put on display on the two upper floors of the National Gallery building in December and for the month of January 2012. Mr. Moore celebrated his 90th birthday last October 12th, shortly before the National Awards Ceremony bestowed on him the award of the Cacique Crown of Honour (CCH) for his exceptional contribution to Guyanese art. The gallery’s display honours this most influential of Guyana’s artists for his lifelong creativity, which has produced hundreds of works of art since his first sculptures began in the late 1940s, after he experienced a vision of a hand reaching down to him from the skies with a sculptor’s tool – recorded in his painting in the National Collection, ‘Receiving the Gift’ (1971-80).
The National Gallery Curator and staff paid Moore a birthday visit at his home on the Corentyne, with gifts and the painting titled ‘Janet Guyana’, which the artist had donated to the gallery last year in memory of the late Chairman of the National Gallery’s Management Committee and former President of Guyana, Mrs. Janet Jagan.
Contrary to his usual practice, the artist had not signed the work, and had promised to do so later. The gallery therefore carried the work for the artist’s signature.
A special card printed by the gallery this December honours Mr. Moore with a reproduction of his colourfully patterned 1966 painting ‘Journey – Rosignol to Georgetown’. This card, along with another by Winston Strick, MS, ‘Birds in the Forest’(1987), printed this month, can be purchased from the National Gallery’s foyer shop along with others reproducing works from the National Collection. These are blank for personal messages. 
Additionally, the main first floor gallery at Castellani House is exhibiting works by artists who have won awards at the National Visual Arts Exhibition, the premier visual arts competition in Guyana. This competition had ceased in 1994 after nearly four decades of being organized and presented, first by the National History & Culture Council, later renamed the National History and Arts Council, and then by its further successor, the Department of Culture, which also administered the National Collection prior to the founding of the National Gallery in 1993.
Castellani House, in wishing to revive an earlier proposal for a relaunch of the NVAE event, is thus promoting the idea of such a competition through the presentation and examination of the quality of prizewinning works and artists, many of whom have had their careers and reputations enhanced, if not established, by the winning of NVAE awards.
The current exhibition therefore includes paintings and sculpture by prizewinning artists from the National Collection, such as Stanley Greaves, George Simon, Oswald Hussein, Bernadette Persaud, Kenneth Ward and Gary Thomas. The exhibition will run until Saturday 4th February next.
Gallery hours are 10am to 5pm Monday to Friday, and 2pm to 6pm on Saturday; the gallery is closed on Sundays and holidays, and admission is free.