The Legacy of Bob Marley and Reggae

1. Nine Mile and Trenchtown: the Jamaica that made Marley

Robert Nesta Marley was born on 6 February 1945 in Nine Mile, a small village in the hills of St Ann parish, Jamaica. His father, Norval Marley, was a white British plantation overseer in his sixties; his mother, Cedella Booker, was a Black Jamaican teenager. Norval Marley provided some financial support but was largely absent, and Robert grew up in the care of his mother in a poor rural community. The circumstances of his birth — mixed race, fatherless, poor — marked him for life, and they gave him an outsider's view of Jamaican society that would later shape his music.

When Marley was a teenager, his mother moved the family to Kingston, the capital, and they settled in Trenchtown, a government housing project that had become one of the city's poorest and most violent districts. Trenchtown was a place of corrugated iron roofs, shared yards and crowded rooms, but it was also a place of extraordinary musical energy. Sound systems played in the streets, singers rehearsed in the yards, and the music of the neighbourhood — first ska, then rocksteady, then reggae — was the soundtrack of daily life. Marley met Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer in Trenchtown, and the three teenagers began singing together, harmonising on the street corners and in the yards. It was in Trenchtown that Marley learned his trade, and it was Trenchtown that he would sing about for the rest of his life, in songs like 'Trenchtown Rock' and 'No Woman, No Cry'.

The Jamaica of Marley's youth was a country in transition. It became independent from Britain in 1962, when Marley was 17, and the years that followed were marked by hope, by political violence between the supporters of the two main parties, and by deep poverty in the cities. Marley's music grew out of that Jamaica — out of the sound systems, the churches, the political rallies and the street corners — and it carried the concerns of that Jamaica with it. To understand Marley, it is not enough to listen to the melodies; it is necessary to hear the place they came from.

2. The Wailers: from Kingston vocal group to Island Records

The Wailers formed in 1963, when Marley, Tosh and Bunny Wailer began recording for the producer Coxsone Dodd at his Studio One in Kingston. Their first single, 'Simmer Down', was a hit in Jamaica, and they recorded dozens of songs over the following years, developing the close harmonies and the rhythmic drive that would become their trademark. They worked with the producer Lee 'Scratch' Perry in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and Perry's inventive, echoing production helped to shape the sound of reggae itself. By 1970, Marley was the group's main songwriter, and his songs were becoming more political and more spiritual, reflecting his growing commitment to the Rastafari faith.

The turning point came in 1972, when the Wailers signed to Island Records, the London label run by Chris Blackwell, a white Jamaican who had grown up on the island and who believed that reggae could reach a rock audience. Blackwell gave the Wailers a budget to record an album in Jamaica and then added rock guitar and keyboards in London, producing a sound that was reggae but polished enough for international radio. The result was Catch a Fire, released in 1973, followed the same year by Burn. Both albums were praised by critics, and the Wailers toured Britain and the United States, opening for rock acts and playing to audiences who had never heard reggae before.

The original Wailers did not survive the success. Tosh and Bunny Wailer left in 1974, unhappy with the direction of the group and with Marley's growing dominance, and each went on to a solo career. Marley continued with a new backing band — the brothers Carlton and Aston Barrett on drums and bass — and with a female vocal trio, the I-Threes, which included his wife, Rita Marley. The new group, billed as Bob Marley and the Wailers, was in practice Marley's band, and it was with this group that he made the albums that defined his fame: Natty Dread, Rastaman Vibration, Exodus and Uprising. The break-up of the original Wailers is sometimes presented as a betrayal, and sometimes as an inevitability. What is clear is that Marley's songwriting, which had been developing for a decade, was ready for a world stage, and that Island Records gave him one.

3. What reggae is, and what Marley did with it

Reggae developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s from the earlier styles of ska and rocksteady. Its defining feature is the rhythm: where most popular music emphasises the first and third beats of the bar, reggae emphasises the off-beat — the 'and' between the beats — with the guitar and piano playing short, chopping chords. The bass plays a melodic, rolling line that carries the song, and the drums are spare and spacious. The result is a sound that feels relaxed and unhurried, even when the lyrics are angry. That contrast — a gentle rhythm carrying a hard message — is one of the things that makes reggae distinctive, and it is one of the things Marley understood best.

Marley's contribution was to take that sound and fill it with content that reached beyond Jamaica. His lyrics drew on the Bible, on the Rastafari faith, on the history of slavery and colonialism, and on the daily life of the poor. 'Get Up, Stand Up' is a call to resist oppression. 'War' sets the words of a speech by Haile Selassie to music. 'Redemption Song', his last great song, is a meditation on freedom, slavery and the power of the mind, sung with only an acoustic guitar. 'One Love' is a plea for unity that has become one of the most played songs in the world. What these songs share is a directness: Marley wrote in simple language about large subjects, and he sang them with a conviction that made them feel personal rather than abstract.

Marley also changed what a reggae singer could be. Before him, reggae artists were largely local stars, known in Jamaica and in the Caribbean diaspora in London and New York. Marley became a global figure, playing stadiums in Europe, Africa and the Americas, and he did it without changing his sound to suit his audience. He sang in Jamaican patois, he wore his dreadlocks, he spoke about Rastafari and about African liberation, and the world came to him rather than the other way around. That is the core of his achievement as a musician: he proved that a music rooted in one small island could speak to people everywhere, without losing its roots.

4. Rastafari, politics and the One Love Peace Concert

Marley's faith was central to his music and to his public life. He became a Rastafari in the late 1960s, under the influence of the singer and teacher Mortimer Planno, and the faith shaped everything about him: his dreadlocks, his diet, his refusal of certain medical treatments, and his lyrics. Rastafari is a movement that began in Jamaica in the 1930s, inspired by the crowning of Haile Selassie as emperor of Ethiopia, whom its members regard as a divine figure. It emphasises African identity, natural living, and the idea of Babylon — the corrupt, oppressive system of the modern world — against Zion, the promised home. Marley's songs are full of this language, and for many listeners around the world, Marley was their first introduction to Rastafari.

Marley's politics were equally direct. He supported the Jamaican prime minister Michael Manley, a democratic socialist, and his songs were associated with Manley's party. In the late 1970s, Jamaica was torn by political violence between the supporters of Manley's party and those of the opposition, and Marley, who was seen as aligned with one side, was shot in his own home in December 1976, two days before a concert he was due to play. He was wounded, but he played the concert anyway, and then left Jamaica for London, where he recorded Exodus, one of his greatest albums. The shooting has never been fully explained, and it remains one of the mysteries of his life.

In 1978, Marley returned to Jamaica for the One Love Peace Concert, at which he brought the two rival political leaders — Manley and Edward Seaga — together on stage and joined their hands above his head. The gesture was famous around the world, and Marley was awarded the United Nations Peace Medal of the Third World the same year. His supporters describe the concert as a genuine act of peacemaking. His critics, and some historians, note that the gesture was symbolic, that the violence continued, and that Marley's own political alignments were more complicated than the image of a neutral peacemaker suggests. Both points are true: the concert was a remarkable moment, and it did not end Jamaica's troubles.

5. Exodus, Legend and the albums that built the legend

Marley's most celebrated album is Exodus, recorded in London in 1977 after the shooting and his departure from Jamaica. The album contains 'Jamming', 'Three Little Birds', 'One Love' and the title track, and it is the album that made Marley a star in Britain and Europe. Time magazine later named Exodus the greatest album of the twentieth century, a judgement that says as much about Marley's reputation as about the record itself. The album that followed, Kaya, was gentler, and the last two studio albums, Survival and Uprising, returned to political themes, with 'Zimbabwe' celebrating the independence of that country and 'Redemption Song' closing Uprising with an acoustic farewell.

Marley's fame after his death was built above all on a compilation album, Legend, released in 1984, three years after he died. Legend collected his best-known songs — 'Is This Love', 'No Woman, No Cry', 'Buffalo Soldier', 'Get Up, Stand Up' — into a single album that became one of the best-selling records of all time. For many listeners, Legend is Bob Marley: it is the album they own, the songs they know, and the image they carry. But Legend is also a simplification. It leaves out the early ska and rocksteady recordings, it leaves out the harder political songs, and it presents Marley as a gentle, universal figure rather than the sharp, specific artist he was. The success of Legend has sometimes been criticised for that reason, and sometimes celebrated for the opposite one: that it made Marley's music available to people who would never have found the original albums.

The question of what Marley represents has been argued over ever since. In Jamaica, he is a national hero, honoured with the Order of Merit and celebrated every year on his birthday. Around the world, he is a symbol of resistance, of peace, of cannabis culture, and of reggae itself — and those images do not always sit comfortably together. The cannabis association, in particular, has been a source of tension: Marley used cannabis as a religious sacrament, and his image has been adopted by a commercial cannabis culture that has little to do with Rastafari. His family and his estate have worked to protect his legacy, and the Marley name is now attached to a wide range of products and businesses. Whether that commercial afterlife honours Marley or exploits him is a question that is still debated.

6. Death at 36 and the making of an icon

Marley's death was as dramatic as his life. In 1977, he was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma under a toenail, after an injury sustained while playing football. He was advised to have the toe amputated, but he refused, for reasons connected to his Rastafari faith and to his belief that the body should remain whole. The cancer spread, and although he continued to record and to tour, by 1980 his health was failing. He collapsed while jogging in Central Park in New York, and after a final concert in Pittsburgh in September 1980, he sought treatment in Germany and then travelled to Miami, where he died on 11 May 1981. He was 36 years old, and he left behind eleven children and a body of work that was still growing.

His funeral in Jamaica was a national event, attended by tens of thousands of people and by the prime minister, and he was buried with his guitar, a football, and a stalk of cannabis. The scale of the mourning showed how much he meant to Jamaica, and the years that followed showed how much he meant to the world. His music continued to sell, his image continued to spread, and his songs continued to be adopted by new causes and new generations. In 1994 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2001 he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The house in Kingston where he lived is now a museum, and Nine Mile, the village where he was born, is a place of pilgrimage for his fans.

The shortness of Marley's life is part of his legend. Like other musicians who died young, he left no late period, no decline, no awkward comeback — only a body of work that ends at its peak. That has made it easier to turn him into an icon, and harder to see him as a real person with contradictions and flaws. His family has been open about the difficulties of his life, including his relationships and his health, and the best accounts of Marley are those that hold both sides together: the extraordinary artist and the ordinary man, the prophet and the performer, the Jamaican and the citizen of the world.

7. The legacy: reggae, Jamaica and the world

Marley's legacy in music is clear. He took reggae from a Jamaican style to a world music, and he did it without diluting it. The reggae that followed him — the dancehall of the 1980s, the reggae fusion of the 1990s, the artists from every continent who now play reggae — all owe him a debt, whether they acknowledge it or not. His influence is also audible far beyond reggae: in hip-hop, in punk, in the protest music of Africa and Latin America, and in the pop music of artists who have borrowed his rhythms and his messages. The idea that a song can be both a dance record and a political statement is one that Marley made normal, and it has shaped popular music ever since.

His legacy in Jamaica is more complicated. Marley is a national hero, and his music is a source of pride and of income for the country. But the Jamaica he sang about — the poor districts, the political violence, the struggle for dignity — has not disappeared, and some Jamaicans argue that the world loves Marley's image while ignoring the country he came from. Others argue that Marley's fame has brought Jamaica more attention and more visitors than anything else in its history, and that his music remains the country's most powerful export. Both views are held in Jamaica, and both have evidence behind them.

The largest legacy is the simplest: the songs. 'One Love', 'Redemption Song', 'No Woman, No Cry', 'Three Little Birds' — these are songs that people sing at funerals and at weddings, at protests and at parties, in Kingston and in London and in Lagos and in Tokyo. They have outlived the politics that produced them, and they have outlived the man who wrote them. Marley once sang that his music would go on after he was gone, and it has. The measure of his achievement is not the posters or the products or the statistics, but the fact that, more than forty years after his death, a song he wrote in a small house in Kingston can still make a room full of strangers sing together.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and further reading

• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Bob Marley
• Wikipedia — Bob Marley
• Bob Marley official site
• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — Bob Marley

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• Who Was Abraham Lincoln? — Abraham Lincoln preserved the Union through the Civil War and ended slavery. This explains his rise, his presidency and his contested legacy.
• Who Was Ada Lovelace? — Ada Lovelace published the first program for a programmable machine in 1843. This explains her notes, her vision of computing and the debate over her role.
• Who Was Adolf Hitler? — Adolf Hitler led the Nazi Party and ruled Germany as dictator from 1933 to 1945, started the Second World War in Europe and was central to the Holocaust.
• Who Was Alan Turing? — Alan Turing defined modern computing, broke German naval Enigma and proposed the Turing test. This explains his science, his war work and his tragic end.
• Who Was Albert Einstein? — Albert Einstein rewrote physics with relativity and won the Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect. This explains his ideas, his life and his legacy.
• Who Was Alexander Graham Bell? — Alexander Graham Bell patented the first practical telephone in 1876. This explains his work with the deaf, the patent fight and his wider inventions.
• Who Was Alexander the Great? — Alexander the Great built one of history's largest empires before dying at 32. This explains his conquests, his cities and the debate over his legacy.
• Who Was Alfred Nobel? — Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, held 355 patents and founded the Nobel Prizes. This explains his explosives empire, his will and the prizes' legacy.
• Who Was Allama Iqbal? — Allama Iqbal was Pakistan's national poet, whose ideas shaped the case for Pakistan. This explains his poetry, his philosophy and his legacy.
• Who Was Benazir Bhutto? — Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to lead a Muslim-majority country, serving as prime minister of Pakistan in 1988-90 and 1993-96.
• Who Was Bob Marley? — Bob Marley took reggae from Jamaica to the world and became a symbol of peace, resistance and unity. This explains his life, his music and his legacy.
• Who Was Bruce Lee? — Bruce Lee was the martial artist and actor who carried Hong Kong action cinema to the world and founded Jeet Kune Do, leaving a lasting influence.
• Who Was Charles Darwin? — Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, published in On the Origin of Species in 1859, became the foundation of modern biology.
• Who Was Charles Dickens? — Charles Dickens was the greatest novelist of the Victorian era, whose serialised novels mixed comedy, social criticism and unforgettable characters.
• Who Was Charlie Chaplin? — Charlie Chaplin created the Little Tramp, the most famous screen character of the silent era, and directed classics City Lights and The Great Dictator.
• Who Was Cleopatra? — Cleopatra VII was the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, a multilingual stateswoman who kept her kingdom independent for 21 years before Rome annexed it.
• Who Was Diego Maradona? — Diego Maradona was an Argentine footballer who captained Argentina to the 1986 World Cup and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in history.
• Who Was Don Bradman? — Don Bradman was an Australian cricketer who averaged 99.94 in Test cricket, a record so far ahead of any other batsman that it remains famous in sport.
• Who Was Elvis Presley? — Elvis Presley took gospel, country and rhythm and blues and turned them into rock and roll, becoming the most famous singer of his century.
• Who Was Emily Dickinson? — Emily Dickinson was an American poet who wrote nearly 1,800 poems in private in Amherst, Massachusetts, and was barely published in her lifetime.
• Who Was Faiz Ahmed Faiz? — Faiz Ahmed Faiz was Pakistan's most celebrated modern Urdu poet, whose verse joined romantic lyricism with resistance to injustice.
• Who Was Franz Beckenbauer? — Franz Beckenbauer was a German footballer known as Der Kaiser, who won the World Cup as captain in 1974 and as manager in 1990.
• Who Was Freddie Mercury? — Freddie Mercury was the lead singer of Queen, a four-octave voice and fearless showman who wrote Bohemian Rhapsody and We Are the Champions.
• Who Was Frida Kahlo? — Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter known for uncompromising, brilliantly coloured self-portraits exploring identity, the body and death.
• Who Was Galileo Galilei? — Galileo Galilei reshaped astronomy with his telescopic discoveries of 1610, defended a Sun-centred universe, and was tried by the Inquisition in 1633.
• Who Was Genghis Khan? — Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and built the largest contiguous land empire in history, a conqueror and lawgiver whose legacy is still argued over.
• Who Was George Washington? — George Washington won American independence, presided over the Constitutional Convention, and as first president defined the office — then walked away.
• Who Was Guglielmo Marconi? — Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor who built the first practical wireless telegraph and sent the first transatlantic radio signal in 1901.
• Who Was Henry Ford? — Henry Ford was an American industrialist who founded the Ford Motor Company, built the Model T and perfected the moving assembly line.
• Who Was Isaac Newton? — Isaac Newton wrote the laws of motion and universal gravitation, invented calculus and transformed optics, leaving a lasting legacy in science.
• Who Was James Watt? — James Watt did not invent the steam engine, but his separate condenser of 1765 made it efficient enough to power the Industrial Revolution.
• Who Was Jane Austen? — Jane Austen published six novels in her lifetime, anonymously, and died at 41. This explains her life, her novels, her irony and her growing reputation.
• Who Was Jesus Christ? — Jesus of Nazareth is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. This explains his life in the Gospels, his teachings and his legacy.
• Who Was Johan Cruyff? — Johan Cruyff was the star of Total Football, won three Ballon d'Or awards, and as a manager built the Barcelona team that shaped modern football.
• Who Was Johannes Gutenberg? — Johannes Gutenberg built the first mechanised printing press in Europe and printed the Gutenberg Bible around 1455, changing how the world shared ideas.
• Who Was John Keats? — John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome at 25, having written his six great odes in a single year. This explains his short life, his poetry and his fame.
• Who Was Joseph Stalin? — Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union from the 1920s until 1953, industrialised the country and led it through the Second World War, ruling through terror.
• Who Was Julius Caesar? — Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, crossed the Rubicon and remade Rome's calendar and government, and was murdered by senators who feared he would be king.
• Who Was Kobe Bryant? — Kobe Bryant won five NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers and became known for the Mamba Mentality, on and off the court.
• Who Was Leo Tolstoy? — Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, then abandoned literary fame for a radical moral philosophy that influenced Gandhi and the world.
• Who Was Leonardo da Vinci? — Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper and filled notebooks with anatomy and engineering, becoming the symbol of the Renaissance.
• Who Was Ludwig van Beethoven? — Ludwig van Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas and the Missa Solemnis, much of it while deaf. This explains his life and legacy.
• Who Was Mahatma Gandhi? — Mahatma Gandhi led India to independence through nonviolent resistance, and his ideas shaped civil-rights movements worldwide.
• Who Was Mao Zedong? — Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 and led it until 1976, bringing unification and the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.
• Who Was Margaret Thatcher? — Margaret Thatcher was the first woman to serve as British prime minister, leading the UK from 1979 to 1990 through reform, the Falklands War and division.
• Who Was Marie Curie? — Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium and remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, a pioneer of radioactivity research.
• Who Was Marilyn Monroe? — Marilyn Monroe was the biggest star of the 1950s, the blonde bombshell of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot, who fought the studio system.
• Who Was Mark Twain? — Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and became America's most famous humorist.
• Who Was Maya Angelou? — Maya Angelou was a poet, memoirist and civil rights activist whose autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings made her widely read.
• Who Was Michael Jackson? — Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, made Thriller, the best-selling album in history, and changed music video, dance and pop stardom.
• Who Was Mirza Ghalib? — Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) is the pre-eminent Urdu and Persian poet of the last Mughal era, whose ghazals on love, loss and doubt are still recited.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali Jinnah? — Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the barrister and statesman who led the All-India Muslim League and became Pakistan's first Governor-General in 1947.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali? — Muhammad Ali was the three-time heavyweight champion who called himself The Greatest, and the most famous athlete of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Napoleon Bonaparte? — Napoleon Bonaparte rose from Corsica to Emperor of the French, redrew the map of Europe, and left a legal code that still shapes law across the world.
• Who Was Nelson Mandela? — Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison under apartheid, then became South Africa's first democratically elected president and a Nobel Peace laureate.
• Who Was Nikola Tesla? — Nikola Tesla developed the alternating-current power system, the induction motor and the Tesla coil, making long-distance electric power practical.
• Who Was Osama bin Laden? — Osama bin Laden founded al-Qaeda in 1988 and organised the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed.
• Who Was Pablo Neruda? — Pablo Neruda was Chile's great poet, a Nobel laureate, a communist senator and a diplomat. This explains his poetry, his politics and his death.
• Who Was Pablo Picasso? — Pablo Picasso co-founded Cubism, painted Guernica, and spent 75 years breaking the rules of art — the most influential artist of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Pelé? — Pele is the only footballer to win three World Cups, the youngest winner, and the game's first global icon. This is his life, his goals and his legacy.
• Who Was Pope Francis? The People's Pope — Pope Francis, the first pope from the Americas and the first Jesuit pope, led the Catholic Church from 2013 to 2025 with an emphasis on mercy and the poor.
• Who Was Prophet Muhammad? — The Prophet Muhammad is the founder of Islam, the world's second-largest religion. This explains his life, his teachings and his legacy.
• Who Was Queen Elizabeth II? — Queen Elizabeth II reigned for 70 years, from 1952 to 2022 — the longest reign in British history. This explains her life, her reign and her legacy.
• Who Was Rabindranath Tagore? — Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the author of the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
• Who Was Rosa Parks? — Rosa Parks was not a tired seamstress who acted on impulse. She was a trained activist and NAACP secretary whose bus refusal was a deliberate act.
• Who Was Rosalind Franklin? — Rosalind Franklin's X-ray image, Photograph 51, gave Watson and Crick the key evidence for the double helix. This is her life and the credit debate.
• Who Was Rumi? — Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet of Konya, wrote the Masnavi and the Divan-e Shams, and became the most widely read poet in the world.
• Who Was Shane Warne? — Shane Warne took 708 Test wickets, bowled the Ball of the Century in 1993 and won the 1999 World Cup with Australia. This explains his career.
• Who Was Stephen Hawking? — Stephen Hawking was a theoretical physicist who showed that black holes emit radiation and wrote A Brief History of Time. He died in 2018, aged 76.
• Who Was Steve Jobs? — Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976, was forced out in 1985, built Pixar, and returned to launch the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. He died in 2011, aged 56.
• Who Was Thomas Edison? — Thomas Edison held 1,093 US patents, invented the phonograph and the practical incandescent lamp, and built the first commercial electric power system.
• Who Was Vincent van Gogh? — Vincent van Gogh produced about 2,100 artworks in a single decade, including The Starry Night and Sunflowers, and became famous only after his death at 37.
• Who Was William Shakespeare? — William Shakespeare is the most performed playwright in history, yet almost nothing is reliably known about his private life.
• Who Was William Wordsworth? — William Wordsworth launched English Romanticism with Lyrical Ballads and wrote The Prelude, the great autobiographical poem. This explains his life.
• Who Was Winston Churchill? — Winston Churchill led Britain through the Second World War and won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and his record on empire is still debated.
• Who Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who composed more than 600 works before his death at 35, defining the Classical era.
• Why Van Gogh Became Famous After Death — Vincent van Gogh died in 1890 almost unknown, and within a few decades his paintings were among the most loved in the world.