Karsters' " Portrait of Hope and Peace"-Suriname's Tributue to Mandela's Message

Nelson Mandela, the fourth and last-living icon on Professor Ruben Karsters’ renowned “Portrait of Hope of Peace:  The Four Ms”, passed away on Friday, December 5th, 2013, in the land of his birth, South Africa.  Mr Mandela was 95 years of age.

His Excellency, Desire D. Bouterse, the President of the Republic of Suriname and a long-time admirer of the former President of South Africa, joined scores of other heads of state from around the world – all of whom converged on the southernmost nation-state on the horn of Africa, to pay their last respects to  the legendary African leader who following incarceration for over two decades emerged triumphant, vindicated, to lead his oppressors and fellow-black and non-black supporters as the era of Boer-instigated apartheid was finally brought to a close in dramatic peace, reconciliation, and harmony in the mid-1990s. 

Suriname’s First Lady, Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs also attended the funeral ceremonies which drew billions of sympathetic television viewers worldwide – the likes of which mirrored the farewell rite and service for Mother Theresa of Calcutta. 

Nelson Mandela’s rise to political prominence and world respect in the 1990s spanned a struggle of more than four decades.  The village boy from Qunu became an international symbol and icon of protracted struggle and hope that finally yielded the once-impossible, triumphant victory.

In 2006-2007, Suriname’s Professor Ruben Karsters captured on canvas four icons from the 20th century with the specific purpose of inspiring through visual imagery young people and future leaders of the 21st century.  In his portrait, “The Four Ms”, Karsters chose to portray Mahatma Gandhi of India, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X of the United States of America, and Nelson Mandela of South Africa. 

There are historic, geographic and natural connections between all four iconic freedom-fighters:  Gandhi’s rise to political prominence began in the country of Mandela’s birth and struggle, South Africa.  Although the two men never met, they both faced on African soil the same monstrosity, ‘aparthied’.  All four men were considered ‘dangerous’ by the status quo and faced incarceration for their outspoken moral stand on the issues of their day.  And in the process of taking clear, unflinching, moral stands – what Mahatma Gandhi termed ‘satyagraha’ (truth-force), they galvanized not just people in their immediate locales, but hundreds of millions worldwide.  Given the fear they generated and the ‘urgency’ of their specific moments in the 20th century, three were assassinated at the hands of their own countrymen - Gandhi in 1948, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X in 1968. 

Ironically, of the four, after decades of protests which had spread across the earth – becoming even an international embarrassment as the incessant rumble rose clarion-strong in the United Nations, only Nelson Mandela came to full bloom, democratically elected as President from 1994 - 1999, before his retirement from public life, and acquiescence at the ripe old age of 95.  Finally, the souls of all four men chose bodies of ‘color’ and the soles of their feet trod the soil of the oft-despised continent, Africa. 

Little wonder, Ruben Karsters’ portrayed these four iconic men who symbolized sacrifice and personal self-transformation by ordinary folk amidst the angst, struggle and undying quest for betterment, not just for themselves but future generations, regardless of color, clime, or creed. 

Upon completion, Professor Karster’s Portrait of the Four Ms, first went on public display at Suriname’s Fort Zeelandia Museum & Art Gallery.  It was part of an exhibition sponsored by the Embassy of India entitled “Indian Resonances in Suriname” – and precisely because the Mahatma was among the 4Ms, there was logical reason for its inclusion. 

In October 2007, the Karsters’ Portrait journeyed to India where – sponsored by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) – it was on display for about eight weeks in New Delhi.  There were numerous anecdotes and accolades on the sub-continent about the unusually unique Portrait which for the first time suggested a metaphoric connection between the four freedom fighters – two from the new world and two from the ancient world.  One wealthy admirer was so enamored in India that he offered Karsters ‘any price’ for the painting.  The latter, however, perceiving a greater purpose beyond that of the Portrait gracing one person’s private collection, returned to Suriname with the masterpiece.

In 2010, when Suriname’s freedom fighter and nationalist, Desire D. Bouterse, finally came to power, through free and fair democratic elections, President Bouterse took the bold decision to adopt Ruben Karsters’ “Portrait of Hope & Peace:  the Four Ms” as his official state gift. 

The Presidential Gift achieved a rare amplitude in November 2010 when President Bouterse presented the Karsters’ Portrait in person to the President of Venezuela, the late Hugo Frias Chavez.  The significance of the gift was reflected in an independent MSNBC poll which selected the Bouterse-Chavez gift as one of the top three best and most appropriate gifts from one head of state to another in 2010.  Karsters’ life-like and brilliantly executed “Four Ms” portrait was selected above gifts from heads of state in the U.S., Russia, U.K., Middle East, and elsewhere. 

Undoubtedly the “Four Ms” was the highlight of the Karsters artistic career which began for the autodidact at the age of seven.  However, the sudden passing of Professor Ruben Karsters on March 5th, 2013, following a brief illness, gave some admirers cause for reflection because the artistic genius died on the same day as Hugo Frias Chavez, the Bolivarian freedom-fighter from Venezuela. 

Prior to his own demise, on the occasion of an earlier meeting, Ruben Karsters had requested that the President of Suriname also present the painting to Nelson Mandela.  Sources close to the President indicated that he had hoped to do so in person.   However, on account of Mandela’s sustained illness and convalescence, a likely meeting between the two freedom-fighters did not take place.

Nelson Mandela, the South African boxer, lawyer, freedom-fighter and Marxist, who joyfully triumphed over adversity, and like Jesus and Gandhi magnanimously forgave his jailors and oppressors, to become an international icon, has been captured in inimitable joyful form on a canvas that is undoubtedly Suriname’s most famous painting to date, “The Portrait of Hope & Peace: the 4 Ms.” 

A Caribbean poet, resident in Suriname, memorialized his first encounter with the Karsters’ art-piece in verse that reflects the essence of the painting

One Shakti
One century
One trajectory

Seamlessly staged
Meteoric rocket fired forth
Morphing the old in the new

One world of Gaea
Rta, the goal, Ananda
Shanti Om!
                    Ivan A. Khayiat © 2007

Thus, as the eternal flame, honoring the world-renowned fallen South African statesman and hero of struggling people, burns bright on a hillside in Mandela’s boyhood village in Qunu, South Africa, it will do likewise in Suriname and the Caribbean for generations to come.

 

Ruben Karsters, Remembering the Legend.

A TRUE ICON OF SURINAME HAS PASSED:
A Tribute to Suriname's Leading Fine Artist and Art Teacher at AlphaMax Academy by poet and writer Ivan Khayiat.

Ruben Karsters-Self Portrait

Last Tuesday March 5th, the Alphamax Academy and the nation of Suriname lost one of its living artistic Legends – Professor Ruben Karsters. Born on 22nd May, 1941, he passed away at the Academic Hospital following a short illness. Although he was rushed to the hospital earlier, efforts to revive him in the intensive care unit failed.

Ruben's Mother

Professor Karsters was Head of the Art Department at the AlphaMax Academy where be began giving classes to young talented art students in the Academy in 2003. In 2008, one of his young scholars was selected as the Africa-Caribbean Art Scholar, granting him a summer scholarship to Parson’s School of Art & Design in NewYork. Very recently another student, whom the art master had trained, was offered a scholarship to the reputable Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, U.S.A..

Ruben Karsters was an autodidact who stunned experienced artists of his time with his unschooled yet deft command of Fine Art Skills. At the tender age of seven he was clearly a young master without letters or credentials. Thus, before he entered his teenage years he had began giving lessons to students twice his age. It was in this period that young Ruben caught the attention of the Dutch-born artist, Nola Hatterman, who saw the extraordinary gifts of this brilliant, gifted, rising, artistic genius.

A Young Girl

Until his passing, when engaged in serious conversation about art, it was with a degree of mild chagrin that Professor Karsters spoke of Nola Hattermann. While acknowledging the role she played at that time in perceiving his gifts, for Karsters, she was nonetheless a somewhat disparaging figure who took credit from the work of other gifted artists of that time in Suriname.

In 1963 Karsters became one of the first Surinamers who travelled to the Netherlands to study “Fine Art.” This art connoisseur made a clear distinction between ‘art’, “Art”, and “Fine Art”. After six years of studying in the Netherlands he returned home Professor of Fine Art in 1968. Recently, the visibly aging artist would often tell his close students that the rigorous study he undertook in Europe was also done by two contemporary still living artists, Erwin de Vries and Suky Irodikromo, whom he respected.

Ruben Karsters was perhaps Suriname’s most celebrated and internationally recognized “Fine Artist” in the latter half of the 20th century. His techniques, methodology, extremely close, incisive study of any subject, combined  with – his inimitable imaginative execution – was deeply reminiscent of the Flemish masters from the Renaissance.

According to the Vice Chairman of the AlphaMax Board of Directors, Dr Eugene Merkus, “When you consider this man and his remarkable gifts, it is not an overstatement that Professor Karsters is irreplaceable. This holds true not just for our home-grown international school, the AlphaMax Academy, here in Paramaribo, but to our country, Suriname.

Professor Karsters will be deeply missed in circles beyond the walls of this school and these shores where he lived.”Ruben Karsters was the fine artist who executed in 2007 the now famous “Portrait of Hope & Peace: The Four Ms” which was made internationally famous when President Desire Bouterse presented the masterpiece-painting to the now-deceased President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela in November 2010. This work of art was commissioned by the Directors of the AlphaMax to inspire aspiring young leaders and the coming generation with exemplars of personal self-transformation, sacrifice, and service.
In an MSNBC public opinion poll, Bouterse’s gift to Chavez was voted as one of the top three ‘Most AppropriateGifts” given in 2010 by one head of state to another. The Karsters-Bouterse-Chavez gift was preferred above other state gifts from leaders of the first world, including Putin and Obama.

Ironically, Professor Karsters passed away on the self-same day as President Hugo Chavez of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. After his highly successful Portrait of Hope & Peace, in 2011 and 2012, Professor Karsters also executedart works which were presented internationally. One observer has stated that perhaps the year prior to his demise will be acknowledged as Karsters’ ‘annus mirabilis’.

Ruben Karsters has had the distinction of being perhaps the only fine artist in Suriname to have painted the current leader and President of the Republic, Desire Bouterse, twice: First, as the young revolutionary leader inthe 1980s, and more recently, in 2012, the mature astute statesman playing his vital role on the international stage as the Father of his people.

.Ruben Karsters is survived by his wife, Sabritrie Karsters-Sewpersad, and their three children, Cheranie, Vasilie,and Irina. He is also survived by his son, Anthony, from a previous marriage.

According to a Director of the AlphaMax which had commissioned the Karsters’ Portrait of Hope & Peace, “TheRubens of Suriname is gone to the great beyond again!”