Haitian Art History
Haitian Art History ( Part II )
By
Aug 16, 2003, 13:13

Dieudonne Cedor

In 1950, following a different misfortune, numerous artists, under the guidance of Lucien Price, Max pinchinnat, and Cedor seperate from the "Centre d'Art and found the "Foyer des Arts Plastiques". It is from there that would spring forth the "Realism of Cruelty" as social painting bearing the stamp of the marvelous, brillantly illustrated by Nehemy Jean, Denis Vergin, Denis Emile, Charles Obas, and Cedor.

From the "Foyer des Arts Plastiques" came the "Brochette Gallery", founded by Lazare, Cedor, Dorcely. Without completely breaking with "Indigenism" and the "Realism of Cruelty, painting wich had become more conscious of properly esthetic values turned toward a much more modern and intellectual expression, especially with Spencer Depas, Villard Denis (Davertige), Jacques gabriel, and Gerard Hyppolite. It is at the "Brochette Gallery" that Rosemarie Desruisseaux made her first steps in painting.

Gesner Armand

At the "Centre d'Art" Andre Pierre and other primitive artists had reinforced the good name of Haitian Art, while Gesner Armand was joining the ranks of the "Sophisticates".

Founded in the early sixties, "Calfou" was the last great association of Haitian artists. With Bernard Wah, painting took a decisive turn that opened it to the " Ecole de La Beauté" . This much more formal and less socially engaged vision of art marked a definitive rupture with "Indigenism". The "Ecole de la Beauté" found its strongest expression in the work of Bernard Sejouné, Jean René Jérome, Simil, Jean Pierre Theard, Carol Théard, Jean Claude Legagneur, and Philippe Dodard.

Frank Louissaint

On the fringe of the "Ecole de la Beauté", the vigorous and varied works of Ronald Mevs, Fravange Valcin, Celestin Faustin, and Jean Claude Garoute (Tiga) offered themselves as so many openings, as well as those of Sacha Thebaud, Frank Louissaint, Marylene Phipps, and Jean Claude Garoute (Tiga), of a very advanced modernism with multiple tendencies, touching sometimes on hyperrealism, geometric abstraction, or infomal expressionism.

In the course of the seventies, Saint Soleil was being born in the heights of Laboule, marking a strong renewal of primitive painting. Out of Saint soleil, Stivenson Magloire would be an incomparable result of primitive art.

Today the vitality of haitian painting, in haiti as well as abroad, is astonishing. If the new generation continues to lean toward hypperealism and feels even more the pull of surrealism and the abstract, it rejects beaten paths, and manifests a greater restlessness, and without wanting to completely break with artistic tradition. It considers itself cognizant of "modernity", more conscious of possibilities, materials, and billing problems, hesitating neither before the unusual, nor before the "licentious". Pascal Smarth, Pascale Faublas, Mario benjamin, Barbara Prezeau, Harold Dessalines.... The promises are many... The future seems assured.



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