Tam Joseph

Tam Joseph has generously produced The Sky At Night, 2021, a limited edition print to coincide with the exhibition, Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s – Now, Tate Britain, 1 December 2021 – 3 April 2022.

The limited edition depicts a painting of the same title, The Sky At Night, c.1985, which features in the Tate Britain exhibition. Joseph created this painting whilst living in London during a period which saw disproportionate use of 'stop and search' powers by police against young black men and countless testimonies of police brutality and violent tactics. On 6 October 1985, a major uprising broke out on the Broadwater Farm Estate in Tottenham, north London, triggered by Broadwater Farm resident Cynthia Jarrett’s death from a heart attack provoked during a police raid of her home. The Tottenham uprising came just a week after riots in Brixton, south London, sparked by the shooting of Dorothy "Cherry" Groce by the Metropolitan Police. Tam Joseph’s The Sky at Night, c.1985, evokes the riot of 6 October 1985, depicting the Broadwater Farm Estate which was built in 1967 and housed over 3,000 people.

Each print is signed and numbered by the artist and comes unframed.

Prices of the artwork are liable to change. As a limited edition sells out, prices of the artwork are subject to increase and the price will be clearly indicated.

• Artist Tam Joseph
• Artwork The Sky At Night
• Dimensions 55 x 88.5 cm
• Material Lithograph print on paper
• Edition Edition of 50, signed and numbered
• Date of work 2021

Tam Joseph (b.1947, in Roseau, Dominica) is a painter, sculptor and graphic designer. Joseph emigrated from the Caribbean to London, UK in 1955 at the age of eight. He studied at the Central School of Art and Design, London (1967), which was followed by a short period at the Slade School of Fine Art before he left to travel in Europe and the Far East. Joseph subsequently graduated in Typographic Design from the London College of Printing. While working for the magazine Africa Journal in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he travelled extensively in Africa, commenting: ‘I have never felt any tangible difference between me and the peoples of Africa south of the Sahara.’ In the 1970s, Joseph worked with the Keskidee Centre Collective in north London, a hub for African and Afro-Caribbean politics and arts. Joseph’s practice often combines humour with serious political narratives to challenge contemporary realities and their inherent contradictions. Awareness, diaspora, identity and world history remain recurrent themes. Joseph lives and works in London, UK.