Vernal Rueben

Reuben began his earliest training under the guidance of the late Edna Manley initially at the DaCosta Institute that would eventually become the Jamaica School of Art. He would go on to specialise in printmaking, taught by visiting tutors as part of the commercial design course.  The printmaking skills encouraged then were related to graphics, advertising and commercial art, but from the outset Reuben showed interest in printmaking as a fine art, creating genre images that reflected the growing nationalist sentiments of his day. He developed a distinctive style in woodcuts and linocuts at a time when printmaking as an art form was still in its infancy in Jamaica. His themes were typical of the independence era, but distinctive for their bold expressiveness and energy. His images compare favourably with African-American woodcuts of the Harlem Renaissance, a genre that shared similar sentiments for the promotion of black culture.In the 1960s and 70s Reuben became an tutor at the Jamaica School of Art, he encouraged master printing and the introduction of presses, motivating a number of younger artists to take the tradition further. During his fifty-year career Rueben has won several scholarships to the Art Students League of New York where he also studied painting, one of his first loves. Rueben also studied at the Bob Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. He is currently based in New York where he also exhibits . His works are in numerous collectons both locally and abroad