[3] Edna Manley was described as incredibly independent, rebellious and spirited, exemplified in the uproar and unrest she caused among her own family as she embraced her 'coloured' ancestry from her mother's side.

Edna quickly realized how different the Jamaican middle class was in comparison to the life she knew in England and kept journals of her thoughts, observations, and experiences.

Manley's feminism influences were arguably due to her a first-wave feminist sister, Lena, who fought alongside the suffragettes for the right to vote for females.

She began moving away from the academic ways of creating that she was so accustomed to, into a truer version of modernism seen in The Beadseller- inspired by these new and exciting observations of life in Jamaica.

This cubist influence can be directly credited to famous artist Pablo Picasso, who disrupted the European art world with his geometric and exploitative creations.

[citation needed] This voluptuousness can also be seen in her work entitled Eve Archived 7 May 2019 at the Wayback Machine (1929), which derived from the story of the first woman mentioned in the bible.

The sculpture is seemingly filled with tension, as suggested by the clenching of the fists, the abnormal twist of the body and the awkward attempt to obscure a breast.

They were ready for a new social order, and voiced their displeasure with the colonial system by incurring strikes (along with riots), instigating food shortages, and promoting protest marches.

Works like "Prophet", "Diggers", "Pocomania", and "Negro Aroused" "caught the inner spirit of our people and flung their rapidly rising resentment of the stagnant colonial order into vivid, appropriate sculptural forms," wrote poet M. G.

[13] Despite the financial rewards from his law practice, being among the social elites and awarded the coveted title of KC, Norman Manley struggled with depression seemingly caused from not being able to represent something more meaningful.

These emotive feelings manifested themselves in the artwork titled Sun and Earth depicting a male and a female in deep embrace, the man's head resting on the chest of the woman.

[14] With the international success of Eve, Boy with Reed and other works such as Dawn, Woman With Basket (in stone), Dance, Sixteen, Seventeen and Rachel the visions of self as an artist and the actual reality of life seems possible and gave her intrinsic strength to carry her family and her art into the unknown future.

Cubism and other avant-garde movements dominated Europe at the time, but Edna Manley's pieces had an air of freshness to them which sparked countless curiosity all over London.

The sculpture, even though in the round has a high relief quality and depicts an African man with head upturned to the heavens atop square shoulders, a twisting torso and thick slab – like arms set in an unusual akimbo position.

Even though the sculpture is not full bodied and only represented from the tip the fingers down to mid thighs, it provokes a ready to fight alertness, combative stance in every sense.

With a significant body of work Mrs. Manley was ready to tackle England's art world, but before she did, she held her first solo show at the Mutual Life Assurance Society building on Barry Street Kingston Jamaica in January 1937.

A pugnacious agitator for change named Alexander Bustamante was at the front of the line defending the cause of common people, relentless remonstrating landed him in jail.

The Peoples National Party (PNP) was also formed by Norman Manley who found his political stride and true purpose which was eluding him for many years.

Edna Manley produced a number of famed sculpture including, “Negro Aroused” and many more which are a part of her permanent collection at the National Gallery (NGJ) leaning up to the 1940s.

According to the book Edna Manley Sculptor by David Boxer, "In July 1941, she records in a diary: Oh, but I want to carve my two Gods dark and light.

According to the National Gallery of Jamaica Blog, "Her work entered another phase in which she combined private symbolism, inspired by the Jamaican Blue Mountain landscape, with an almost painterly approach to form and surface.

[27]” Mrs. Manley went on to explained Horse of the Morning's genesis: according to the book by David Boxer, "It was early in the morning… I wanted to watch the dawn come up, and I went along the little path behind the house, and I did see him leap from behind the mountains.

Caught in a moment of searing erotic intensity with phallic leg and carefully articulated "ping pong ball" eyes that red both on the suns and as symbols of a fully charged sexuality[28]”.

Its attitude is one significant to that of the secret but its subject, the two heads of a man and a woman, with hands raised in characteristics Manley gesture represents an intimate dialogue between the sexes.

The image is a descendant of negro aroused cast now as a man of action and set now in the context of the sun and moon symbolism developed in the forties.

In 1959, it saw the creation of a far more intimate carving a commission from friends the artist chose as the subject a young girl endearing embracing a small goat.

[33] Paul Bogle was the leader and was hanged as punishment as he led the last large scale rebellion for voting rights and an end to legal discrimination and economic oppression against African Jamaicans faced and due to his ability to stand tall and take charge he was recognized as a national hero in Jamaica in 1969.

The statue was a commission in 1964 by Edward Seaga commemoration of the centenary of the Morant Bay Rebellion[35] She was unable to get a proper description as there were not photographs available of Bogle at the time.

This caused Edna to then see information elsewhere as this was very vague, they quoted that he was "black and shiny heavy marks of smallpox on face, especially on nose…large mouth, red thick lips; about five feet eight inches tall, broad shoulders… no whiskers.

Journey was the last wooden carving done by Edna Manley, all her works after that was modeled in clay and cast, she started exploring other Medias like drawing and painting.