Press release

Old Man and the Sea (or) Santiago's Finest Hour

A tremendous Marlin bursts from the sea as a diminutive Santiago bravely stands in his impossibly inadequate skiff. Sky and sea speak of heaven and hell, life and death meet in this vibrant canvas as you enter Guy Harvey’s “Santiago’s Finest Hour”. Fifty-nine pen and ink drawings as well as additional paintings by renowned marine artist Guy Harvey illustrate Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” at the Museum of Art & History at the Custom House. As a child growing up in Jamaica, “The Old Man and the Sea” made a huge impression on the young Guy Harvey. Hemingway’s Cuba was not so different from Harvey’s Jamaica, his Santiago not so different from Harvey’s local fishermen, and Hemingway’s respect for the marlin, a mirror of his own. “The Blue Marlin was then, and remains now, the fish I hold in the highest esteem,” said Harvey. “The size, beauty, power, speed, endurance and stamina of the Blue Marlin was brought into households worldwide by Ernest Hemingway’s Nobel Prize winning story.” Inspired by the similarity of local fishermen to Hemingway’s Santiago, Harvey began sketching boats and fishermen of the Belmont fishing community in Jamaica. A gifted scientist as well as an artist, he left Jamaica to pursue an education in marine biology that took him to Aberdeen University in Scotland. Harvey survived the cold dark winters by mentally slipping away, painting the brilliant fish and azure Caribbean water he had grown up in. To escape the bleak northern evenings, he reread “The Old Man and the Sea” giving rise to a series of illustrations, using as reference the Belmont fishing community he could readily conjure up in his mind. Within a year he had created 40 intricate pen and ink drawings of his favorite segments of the story. Harvey returned to the Caribbean and was soon engrossed with his Ph.D. thesis, setting the illustrations aside until 1985 when he had time to put together an exhibit of 44 “Old Man and the Sea” drawings for a show in Kingston, Jamaica. Four years later he was invited to the Hemingway Billfish Tournament in Havana and from there, the village of Cojimar, the setting of Hemingway’s story. In Cojimar Harvey met Georgio Fuentes, Hemingway’s captain and the man who inspired him to write “The Old Man and the Sea”. Harvey returned from his trip to Cuba galvanized to complete the full 59 illustrations of this exhibit as well as a collage and the introduction to Santiago and the marlin. Guy Harvey has said his one regret is he never met Ernest Hemingway. To see the skill, artistry and emotion with which he has captured Hemingway’s story, one might think that he had. Guy Harvey was at the Custom House for an opening reception, Thursday, June 9, 2005, 5:30-7 p.m.

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