Judy MacMillan

Judy MacMillan

Judy Ann MacMillan is one of Jamaica’s foremost academic painters. Born in Kingston but trained in Scotland she brings to her work a unique synthesis of technical ability and subjective intimacy that only a Caribbean artist can achieve.

Returning from her studies in Europe, in the early 1970s Judy MacMillan began to establish a name for herself amongst collectors and patrons alike as she undertook a series of portrait commissions. Her keen sense of observation, classical rendering and her sense of pathos for her sitters brought her public acclaim and success. But Macmillan showed herself to be more than just a society painter, in the tradition of itinerants such as the British painter Augustus John who visited Jamaica in the late 1930s, she moved towards portraiture with a social conscience. Choosing subjects such as Jamaica’s youth as in New Breed 1975, she raised questions and awareness about modern Jamaican society. These works quickly found their way into the National Collection.