Artist Maylene Duncan passes away
Stabroek News
May 6, 2003
Leading Guyanese artist Maylene Duncan passed away last Saturday morning at the home of her brother, Frederick Duncan, in Kitty, after a brief illness, a press release from Castellani House said yesterday. She was 42 years old.
Her drawings and paintings are part of the National Collection of Art, and are in several collections in Guyana and abroad.
Duncan's death, the release said, is an immense loss to the Guyanese artists' community and in particular to the Guyana Women Artists' Association (GWAA) where she was a prominent and influential member, as well as its elected president in 2001 and 2002.
An artist, painter and ceramist, Duncan exhibited at all exhibitions of the GWAA from 1988 to 2002, in Guyana and abroad. Her first solo exhibition was at Castellani House, with the very successful 'Faces of Our Time' exhibition of paintings and pastel drawings in August-September 1999, and President Bharrat Jagdeo had attended the inauguration soon after his assumption of the Presidency of Guyana, the release noted. And her submission of a miniature painting to a worldwide women's art exhibition/competition on the theme of 'Women at Work' in 1999-2000 was not only selected for exhibition but subsequently earned the distinction of being one of only two works from the entire international exhibit to be reproduced on the invitation to the exhibition's American inaugural event.
Duncan, a noted prize-winner in local drawing and watercolour competitions, last exhibited at Castellani House at the National Drawing Competition in October last year, requesting to exhibit out of competition. The previous month, the release said further, she had been one of two artists who had travelled to Caracas, Venezuela for the inauguration of the National Gallery exhibition, 'Together-ness in Guyana', after she was elected by her fellow artists to represent them at this event.
She was also a Burrowes School tutor who had taught evening classes to members of the public and had continued to do so in recent years from her home.
Duncan would be "greatly missed by all those who knew her and admired her work which was uniquely touched with humanity, generosity of spirit and humility," the release added.
