This week, 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.
Professor Karsters was Head of the Art Department at the AlphaMax Academy where he began giving classes to young talented art students in the Academy in 2004. In 2007, 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 New York. Very recently, another student, whom the art master had trained for many years, was offered a partial scholarship to a highly reputable art and design university in Georgia, USA.
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 begun 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, rising, artistic genius.
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 Soeki 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 were deeply reminiscent of the Flemish masters from the Renaissance. As art master, Professor Karsters had given art classes to scores of artists in Suriname, including Jules Brand-flu, Cliff San A Jong, and TMC’s Martin Slagtand – all of whom he fondly remembered as very gifted artists.
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 Chávez 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 Chávez was voted as one of the top three “Most Appropriate Gifts” given in 2010 by one head of state to another. The Karsters-Bouterse-Chávez 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 Chávez of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. After his highly successful Portrait of Hope & Peace, in 2011 and 2012, Professor Karsters also executed artworks 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 in the 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, Sabitrie 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 and Peace, “The Rubens of Suriname is gone to the great beyond again!”
Yours faithfully,
Milton Drepaul
AlphaMax Academy
