Adam

Adam

Geoffrey Lamont Holder (1930 - 2014) was a Trinidadian-American actor, voice actor, choreographer, singer, director and painter. He was known for his height (6 ft 6 in), hearty laugh, and heavily accented bass voice combined with precise diction. From his film career, he is particularly remembered as the villain Baron Samedi in the 1973 Bond-movie "Live and Let Die". In this, his first collection of photographs, he offers a unique and often starling vision of the creation of man, and a remarkable celebration of his physical beauty. As in Holder's work for the dance, the figures here are fluid and exuberant; like much of his artwork, they also have a sculptural solidity, recalling at the same time the abstractions of Modigliani and African art and the balanced statuary of classical Greece. In these pages, Adam is Everyman: rooted in the earth, yet straining for spirituality; solitary, yet yearning for release from his loneliness. Accompanied by quotations from Genesis and other myths of creation, the photographs accentuate both Adam's struggle and his jubilation. At once sensual and abstract, they afford us an image of the male body that is entirely Holder's own, some of them brining to mind the firmness of bronze, others evoking the sinuosity of landscape, still others capturing the essence of movement. Resonant with the virtuosity and theatricality that has illuminated all of Holder's work; they should stand as a testament to the force of his imagination and the unerring discernment of his eye.