SIX members of the nation’s artistic community were recognised with Musgrave Awards at the Institute of Jamaica in downtown Kingston, yesterday.

Gold Musgrave medals were presented to Anthony Winkler, renowned writer, and Petrona Morrison, art educator and former head of the School of Visual Arts at the Edna Manley College.

Speaking to the Jamaica Observer following the ceremony, Winkler said he was humbled.

“It is such an honour. I have received the gold medal, but would have been just as happy with a tin medal,” he said.

Winkler is known for his works The Painted Canoe and The Lunatic. The latter made into a movie, which starred Paul Campbell and the late Reggie Carter.

Cheers rang out when silver Musgrave medallist music producer Donovan Germain rose to accept his award.

Germain — who heads Penthouse Records, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary — was recognised for his more than 40 years service to the local music industry.

It was noted that through Germain’s insight and creativity, the careers of Marcia Griffiths, Beres Hammond and the late Gregory Isaacs, were relaunched during the 1990s.

Jeweller and metalsmith Jasmine Thomas-Girvan was also a silver medallist. Thomas-Girvan who lives in Trinidad and Tobago was not present to accept her award.

The local music industry was also recognised in the bronze medal category through music producer Augustus ‘Gussie’ Clarke.

Clarke, like Germain, has served the industry for more than four decades. Through his Music Works recording studio, he produced some recognisable reggae classics. JC Lodge’s Telephone Love, Pass the Kutchie by the Mighty Diamonds, Gregory Isaacs’s Rumours and Shabba Ranks’s Mr Love Man, all bear Clarke’s credits.

“It’s a great honour that I humbly accept,” he told well-wishers.

Painter Phillip Thomas rounded out the arts community, as he too received the bronze medal.

Thomas, who teaches painting at School of the Visual Arts at the Edna Manley College, is a multi-award-winning artist who is a regular exhibitor at the National Gallery of Jamaica.

Musgrave Medals, which recognises the contribution of Jamaicans to literature, science and art, were also handed out to Professor Celia Christie-Samuels (gold) for her contribution medicine; Dr Karl Aiken (silver) for his work in agriculture; and Dr Tannecia Stephenson for her work in the area of physics.

The Musgrave Medal is the oldest awards scheme in the Western Hemisphere — founded in 1889.

— Richard Johnson