In Search of Tina

Photo courtesy of Em Fitzgerald from The Front Room, Museum of the Home

Roger Robinson

1.

This entire investigation started when visiting one of my favourite artist friends, Bill Pollard, to discuss a joint exhibition we were to hold. Over two steaming cups of builder’s tea, we talked the way we always did. This time, our conversation veered to families and the artistic legacies left behind them. We wondered if we would ever be able to escape those legacies in order to create our own, separate from theirs. I felt like it wasn’t about erasing those influences but rather reframing them as a lineage we could extend in new and interesting ways.

Bill’s studio – and his house in general – was always filled with meticulously organized art supplies, his parents’ artwork, remnants of his exhibitions, and pieces he’d collected. Having penciled in our August meeting on his wall calendar, it was time for me to leave. Saying my good-byes, I noticed a framed print of a painting had been turned on its side. Even from that angle, I recognised it at once – it was the same print that had hung in my grandmother’s living room for decades.

When I asked where he’d gotten it, Bill said he’d picked it up at a second-hand store. I told him that the print was a staple in West Indian homes and, being the artist he is, he asked, ‘Why?’ I realised I had no idea. That question stayed with me: why was this image so ubiquitous in Caribbean homes during the seventies and eighties?

2.

So I decided to dig deeper. I reached out on social media, asked friends and family, did some basic research, and got help from my research-savvy friend Adam Fairclough. Here is what I discovered:

The painting is called Tina, a print of an original work by J.H. Lynch, who also created a famous portrait of Winston Churchill. In the 1960s. Prints of Tina popped up in popular culture and even made a fleeting appearance in A Clockwork Orange. It shares some kind of cultural kinship with The Green Lady, a kitschy, supposedly chinoiserie-inspired painting by Tretchikoff, though it’s hard to say whether there was an actual link or just a shared spirit of the times.

Tina is still iconic and featured in Michael McMillan’s genius West Indian Front Room (1976) exhibit at the Museum of the Home in London. You could purchase a framed print at Boots the Chemist in the Sixties, and the model for the painting is thought to be Alexandra Moyens, who was the winner of ‘Most Beautiful Teenager in Great Britain Competition’ in 1955. At one time or another, Tina may have been the height of fashion and, in a sense, it was a viral image before the internet came along.

3.

But none of this – other than its broad availability – explains why Tina held such a place of honour in my grandmother’s living room, or in those of so many others in her community.

To learn more, I reached out to some elders who had owned the print. A few things became common in our conversations. Firstly, all the elders I spoke with were convinced that the painting was of a woman of colour. With the Caribbean’s diverse ethnic mix, it’s easy to see how Tina could represent the many shades of Blackness found in the region.

Secondly, in the Sixties and Seventies, it was unusual to find readily available and affordable artwork representing non-white subjects. Many elders remembered buying the print at outdoor markets like Ridley Road or Shepherd’s Bush, where they did their weekly shopping.

Thirdly, some elders discerned in the painting a vaguely religious element, believing Tina to represent Eve in the Garden of Eden. This lent it a sense of holiness, justifying its pride of place in their most important rooms.

And finally, to have art on the wall was symbolic of aspiration, of a better life – the very life to which they had come to Britain to create. The displaying of artwork, like Tina, in their living rooms, depicted pride and achievement, the beauty they sought to bring into their homes.

4.

Tina has always been somewhat in the background of my life and that of the larger Caribbean community: 

Tina watching over the church elders visiting for Christmas, eating black cake and drinking sorrel. 

Tina watching as my grandad played his Lord Kitchener calypso records on the radiogram.

Tina presiding over the lace doilies and plastic-covered couches in front rooms reserved for special guests.

Tina guarding my grandmother’s glass cabinet filled with her best china and crystal.

Tina witnessing grandfathers leaving for early shifts in the cold dawn.

Tina watching young grandparents dancing to The Skatalites at rent parties.

Tina watching steaming stewed chicken and rice emerge from the kitchen during christenings.

5.

Most of all, I remember Tina in the background on the day I told my grandmother I’d gotten a job at McDonald’s. To my surprise, she started to weep. I had never seen her cry before and never did again.

She wasn’t stoic – she could be angry, and she often smiled – but tears were rare. I asked her why she was crying, and she said, ‘I’ve worked hard all my life so you wouldn’t have to work in places like McDonald’s.’

That moment is in the background of everything I’ve done in England. Much like Tina became a background to the West Indian communities’ lives.

Roger Robinson

Roger Robinson is a multi award-winning poet from Trinidad now living in Britain.