DONALD ‘Jackie’ Hinkson was born on the 13th of September 1942 in Port of Spain, Trinidad. He grew up with his family in a community known as Cobo Town in the heart of POS. At Richmond Street Boys Primary School he began like many of his classmates drawing images mainly from comic books. At secondary school, Queen’s Royal College, he met and began painting with fellow student Peter Minshall, renowned carnival costume designer.
 
He furthered his art studies at the Académie Julián, Paris in 1963 and at the University of Alberta, Canada, 1965 to 1970, where he graduated with a BFA and a Diploma of Education. After 1970 he at first focused on plein air watercolours and drawing but since then has expanded his expression to include oils, acrylics, wood sculpture and iPad art, producing from small to mural size work. His style has remained mostly realistic and figurative but often with a strong sense of the abstract and his subjects range from landscape to architecture, the human figure in all aspects of national life, and social commentary.
 
The artist has exhibited locally, regionally and internationally with a major retrospective in 2012. He has produced four books on his life and art. His over 100 sketch pads have been inscribed by UNESCO into Trinidad and Tobago’s Memory of the World register 2010. In 2011 the University of the West Indies conferred on him an Honorary Doctorate. In 2019 the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago awarded him the Chaconia Medal Gold. The artist married Caryl Blache-Fraser in 1967 and has three children and nine grandchildren. Now in his eighties Hinkson continues to produce his art.