Préfète Duffaut (1 January 1923 – 6 October 2012) was a

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

Biography

Born in Cyvadier, Sud-Est, near the seaport of Jacmel, where he lived and worked. The painter Pauleus Vital (1918–1984) was Duffaut's half-brother, the painter Jean Charles Duffaut (*1970) is his son. Duffaut's mother died when he was two years old, and he was mostly raised by his father, a sailboat builder in Jacmel. In 1944, he introduced himself to Rigaud Benoit who was then visiting Jacmel as a talent scout for the recently created Centre d'Art of

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( ; ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Haiti, most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 1,200,000 in 2022 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The me ...

. In 1948, encouraged by Bill Kraus - an American journalist and artist living in

, Duffaut joined the Centre d'Art in the Haitian capital. There began working alongside important Haitian artists such as Gesner Abelard and Hector Hyppolite. Later, he joined the Galerie Issa, where he worked for many years. In 1951, Duffaut was one of several artists invited to paint murals in the interior of the Cathedral of Sainte Trinité (largely destroyed in the January 2010 earthquake) in

; his works there were titled "''The Temptation of Christ''" and "''The Processional Road''" (also referred to as the "''Procession of the Crossing Guard''"). Sometimes referred to as the foremost "dreamer" of the Haitian artists in modern times, Duffaut is above all a naïve painter. His earlier works portray highly precise depictions of his hometown. Later, he began shifting towards his own style, described as both sophisticated, fantastic and highly imaginative. He is known for painting in the vernacular style and his work typically consists of fantastical "imaginary cities" (villes imaginaires), that often contain coastal elements with boats. The cityscapes are strongly influenced by the coastal city of Jacmel. Another recurrent theme, especially in earlier works, is imagery associated with Vodou. Duffaut's work has been exhibited and collected widely outside of Haiti. His body of paintings continues to be a strong influence on contemporary Haitian artists such as Prince Luc (Luckner Candio).

References

External links

Works of Préfète Duffaut in the Zander Collection

Le peintre Préfète Duffaut et la genèse de son oeuvre
- Article about the oevre of Duffaut on Caraïb Express Blog by Marie Flore Domond. (French text)
Préfète Duffaut: piété et urbanisme imaginaire
- Excerpt of a 2007 documentary directed by Arnold Antonin. (French and Haitian Creole language)

(French text)
A History of Haitian Art
- Posted on naderhaitianart.com
Documentary by Arnold Antonin - Préfète Duffaut: Piété et urbanisme imaginaire
{{DEFAULTSORT:Duffaut, Prefete 1923 births 2012 deaths Contemporary painters Haitian painters Haitian male painters People from Jacmel Naïve painters 20th-century Haitian painters 20th-century Haitian male artists Haitian artists Haitian art Haitian artist stubs

Biography

References

Further reading

External links