Donald Cuthbert Locke (17 September 1930 – 6 December 2010) was a Guyanese artist who created drawings, paintings and sculptures in a variety of media.

[2] His father, also called Donald Locke, was a skilled carpenter who made furniture and his mother, Ivy Mae (née Harper), was a primary school teacher.

[4] In 1947 Locke attended a Working People's Art Class (WPAC) taught in Georgetown by the local artist Edward Rupert Burrowes.

Writing about Burrowes in the 1966 Guyana Independence Issue of New World, Locke describes how he was constantly engaged in "technical exploration", including making his own paints from unlikely ingredients and conducting experiments "with balata, buckram, tailor's canvas, rice bags, bitumen, concrete and ... clay mixed with molasses.

[4] He was taught painting by William Scott and Bryan Wynter, pottery by James Tower and sculpture by Ken Armitage and Bernard Meadows.

There he met the artists Dave Cohen, Sheldon Kaganof and Dion Myers, who introduced the ideas of the California Clay Movement to Britain.

[4] In 1962 Locke obtained a grant from Edinburgh University to go to Florence and Ravenna, where he undertook historical research He completed his graduate thesis in 1964 and returned to Georgetown to take up a position as Art Master at Queen's College,[4] where he taught from 1964 until 1970.

In 1970, after a trip to Brazil sponsored by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he resigned from Queen's College and moved to London, where he obtained work teaching ceramics.

He divorced Leila in the late 1970s,[11] and obtained permanent residency status in the United States, marrying Art Consultant Brenda Stephenson in 1981.

Marianne Lambert, an Atlanta curator and art patron, said: "His expressiveness ran the gamut from frenzied drawings to the spare, clean lines of his sculptures."

"[19] A reviewer commenting on his work Trophies of Empire 1, 1972–1974 said it "comprise[s] robust disconnected forms that eerily echo the cultures and geographies he had experienced.

Heavy metal vessels, solid wood forms and found objects are placed together creating awkward human effigies or challenging abstract assemblages.

Their loaded erotic and sometimes violent symbolism bring to mind mournful memories from the past and issues related to slavery, identity and sovereignty.

[24] A 2002 exhibition at the Solomon Projects gallery in Atlanta featured rough wax sculptures that represented the sacred symbols of Locke's Guyanese creole heritage.

[20] Locke exhibited in many other group and solo shows, including in São Paulo, Brazil; Medellín, Colombia; Budapest, Hungary; Faenza, Italy; Victoria and Albert Museum and Whitechapel Gallery in London, United Kingdom; Nottingham, United Kingdom; Aljira Center for Contemporary Art in Newark, New Jersey; Nexus Biennial and the Master Artist Series, Atlanta, Georgia; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.