Haitian Art

Haitian Artists Get a Break

2010-10-07T13:58:00.002-04:00

Macy’s, the well-known department store, is launching its Heart of Haiti Collection, with an average of thirty-five per cent of each sale going directly back to Haitian artists. We’re talking about paintings and metal crafts to be sold at branches of Macy’s. There are forty items available, including a $10 metal pendant, a $275 oil painting, and many items priced more reasonably from $25 to $60, with the idea being that almost anyone could afford an original piece of Haitian art. Candle holders, clutch purses, napkin rings, trays, mirrors, coasters and fruit sculptures are among the offerings. Roughly 350 artists have been employed in this effort.
Highly acclaimed metal sculptor Serge Jolimeau has work in the Heart of Haiti Collection. With ten employees, according to a Sunday story in the Miami Herald, he was quoted as saying that the order from Macy’s has been a boon to him and his staff: “A lot of people are working.”
The project grew out of a May meeting convened by the William J. Clinton Foundation to figure out how to revive the Haitian art community. Good for Clinton and good for Haiti, where so much progress after January’s earthquake seems to be in pathetic slow motion. And this first collection is not just a one-shot deal. A spring collection is already in the works.
If you want to attend a launch partying South Florida, head to Dadeland Macy’s Home Store at 7675 North Kendall Drive in Miami this Thursday at 6 p.m.. Several Haitian artists whose work is featured in the collection will be on hand to show and discuss their work.
--Candice Russell
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Haitian Art Show in Miami, Florida

2010-08-16T19:52:00.000-04:00

“Tap-Tap: Celebrating the Art of Haiti” is currently on view at the Frost Art Museum located on the campus of Florida International University in Miami, Florida. This modest show, drawn from the museum’s permanent collection, features a papier-mache tap-tap, a colorful bus topped with fruits and vegetables and people riding on the back end, and wonderfully primitive paintings by the under-rated Wagler Vital, including one titled “Fishing Boats.” As written about by Tom Austin in Sunday’s Miami Herald newspaper, the exhibition also displays work by papier-mache master Lionel Simonis, painter Gerard Fortune, and Edouard Duval-Carrie, unarguably the best-known living Haitian expatriate artist.
A brochure accompanies the exhibition. It is free to all visitors, as is the show, which continues through September 5. For more information, telephone 305/348-2890 or visit the museum at 10975 Southwest 17th Street in Miami, Florida 33199.

--Candice Russell

Aid to Haiti and Questions

2010-08-10T19:25:00.002-04:00

Food for the Poor, a non-profit organization based in Coconut Creek, Florida with a big hand in Haiti’s post-earthquake recovery, mailed out this week a full-color, oversized brochure highlighting its achievements. It was refreshing to read what this charitable entity has accomplished so far -- the building of 802 housing units, 45 water projects, 361 tractor-trailer loads of food and water distributed and 449 tractor-trailer loads of various other relief supplies delivered. But the work is far from done.

To learn more about Food for the Poor or to donate to its continuing efforts, telephone 954/427-2222. The mailing address is 6401 Lyons Road, Coconut Creek, Florida 33073.

While it is good to know that someone is doing something about providing substantial help in Haiti, rather than just promises of money, what rankles me is the absence of any entity willing or able to coordinate efforts to help the future of Haitian art and artists in Haiti, both living and deceased. Is anyone in the Haitian government coordinating an effort to preserve the paintings and other art objects damaged but still salvageable from the earthquake? What about the Biblically inspired murals at the Saint Trinity Episcopal Church in Port-au-Prince? Is there a register of artists who passed away during the tragedy and a list of who survived?

Maybe with all that needs to be done in Haiti, it is too soon to be asking these questions. But my curiosity remains keen to know the answers.
--Candice Russell

Great Haitian Bookstore Survives in Miami

2010-08-07T09:10:00.002-04:00

Libreri Mapou is the centerpiece and some may even say the heart of Little Haiti, a district in Miami, Florida where Haitians live, work, and do commerce on the streets selling clothing, fruits and plants just like they do in Port-au-Prince. In a story in the Miami Herald this week, the 20th anniversary of the exceptional bookstore Libreri Mapou was the focus. It has survived the current economic recession and remains the intellectual soul of a community, as well as a gathering place for artists and others who want a strong connection to Haiti.

In years past, Libreri Mapou had Haitian paintings and crafts for sale in an upstairs room. It was always the place to buy delicious cremas at Christmas. If you want color postcards from Haiti and books in French, Creole and English about Haiti including books about Haitian art, this is the place to visit.

One of the unexpected treasures I found there was an eye-poppingly gorgeous hard-cover interior/home design book called “Interieurs d’Haiti” by Roberto Stephenson and Marie-Louise Fouchard measuring nine inches by seventeen inches. Pictured inside in full color are the homes of Haitians, rich and less than middle class. Regardless of economic circumstances, the owners of these remarkable places have employed a similar aesthetic -- an appreciation for bright colors, original paintings and other artwork, and a love of the eclectic.

So congratulations to owner Jean Mapou of Libreri Mapou for keeping the intellectual flame of Haiti alive in South Florida for those who live here and those visitors savvy enough to pay the store a visit. It is located at 5919 Northeast Second Ave. in Miami, Florida 33137. The telephone number is 305/757-9922.

--Candice Russell

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Flying Kites for Haiti

2010-08-05T15:11:00.002-04:00

A symbol of hope and freedom, a kite is a fitting symbol for Haiti’s rebirth in the aftermath of the cataclysmic earthquake in January that changed the island forever. On August 22 in various cities throughout the U.S., Haiti and the Bahamas, at exactly 4:53 p.m. (the time that the earthquake began on January 12), kites will be flown in New York, Massachusetts, Georgia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. in this country, plus other sites beyond its borders. Victims of this terrible tragedy will be honored and remembered.

Involving the participation of 200 children is the job of Plas Timoun, an organization created with the First Lady of Haiti and Haitian artist Philippe Dodard . It is dedicated to providing art education and art therapy to children affected by the earthquake.

--Candice Russell

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Wyclef Jean for Haitian President?

2010-07-29T19:31:00.000-04:00

Famed singer/rapper Wyclef Jean, a founding member of the Fugees, just announced the possibility that he might run in the next election to become president of Haiti. The current president, Rene Preval, has made Jean a goodwill ambassador for Haiti.
Though Jean’s political qualifications are as yet unknown, he has been a tireless advocate for Haiti, bringing attention to the hard-hit island nation long before the earthquake on January 12th. The unfurling of the Haitian national flag at concerts and performances, as in the televised benefit for earthquake survivors, is a trademark of Jean, who never forgets his roots. He takes every chance he can to celebrate Haiti at a time when Haiti is unfairly denigrated in the media.
What would it mean to Haiti if Wyclef Jean became president of Haiti? It is too soon to speculate. But I am fairly certain that he would focus a laser beam of light on the arts of Haiti, from music to visual expression in all forms. Cultural tourism of the truest kind might be the result.

--Candice Russell

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How to Assist the Arts in Haiti

2010-07-15T13:31:00.001-04:00

A very special event takes place next month in the state of Maryland. It is the first ever meeting of the Haiti Cultural Economy Forum. The theme is “Remake the Landscape, Retain the Spirit: Strategies for the Rebirth of Haiti through Her Arts and Culture.”

The event is set for August 20 to 22 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. Tentatively scheduled to appear is Ambassador Raymond Joseph from the Embassy of Haiti in Washington, D.C. The cost for early registration, prior to July 21, is $170. For more information, visit the web site
www.haiticultureforum.com.

This web site states, “The Forum is a discussion on a shared vision for Haiti and how the needs of the Haitian people can be met using Haitian arts and culture to grow and develop. It is designed to establish alliances, mobilize available assets, and identify needed resources to articulate Haiti’s future and its prosperity.”

--Candice Russell

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A Friend From Haiti Goes to New York

2010-07-06T10:30:00.000-04:00

Imagine a lifetime in Haiti, through good times in childhood to bad times including the January 12th earthquake. Then imagine boarding your first airplane flight and traveling with two of your children to New York City, to be greeted by your sister and your mother whom you haven’t seen in decades, plus assorted relatives.
This is what happened on Thursday to my friend Mr. Lange Rosner. I spoke to him by telephone a few hours after he arrived in the United States. Amid the joyful sounds of a little dog barking and people laughing and talking the background, Mr Rosner told me, “This is a very, very beautiful city….This is not a dream.”
I am so happy that Mr. Rosner is here, though key members of his family weren’t granted exit visas. He had been trying to come to the United States for twelve years and the possibility that he would be coming was hard to believe in previous months, considering the terrible conditions in Haiti and the desire among untold thousands of people to leave the broken country. The fact that Mr. Rosner is here is a perfect story for this Fourth of July holiday weekend. How many of us, like myself whose grandmother hailed from Norway, are a generation or two away from being born and growing up in another country?
So celebrate, my good friend Mr. Rosner. You deserve all the magnificent times to come.

--Candice Russell

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Helping Haiti from Florida

2010-07-01T12:08:00.000-04:00

All Floridians of Haitian heritage who want to help Haiti in the recovery process after the January 12th earthquake, here is your opportunity. On July 17th, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida, there will be a Haitian Hometown Association Workshop to provide training to local Haitian-American organizations on fund-raising, grant-writing and organizational training. It is sponsored by FAVACA, which stands for the Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the Caribbean and the Americas. So much needs to be done on every level, from basic infrastructure needs like housing and roads to cultural heritage re-building and conservation, like saving the priceless Biblical-themed four murals that survived the earthquake at the cathedral in Port-au-Prince.
The workshop will be led by FAVACA volunteer James Mueller with the aim to help improve conditions in Haiti. Also present will be Tania Delinois, who provided post-trauma counseling in Haiti after the earthquake. For more information, the telephone number is 305/470-5070.

--Candice Russell

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Art by Haitian Children on Display

2010-06-30T10:14:00.000-04:00

The Smithsonian Institution’s Ripley Center in Washington, D.C. opened an exhibition of 100 paintings and drawings made in the aftermath of the January 12th earthquake by Haitian children. On view for the past two weeks and continuing through October, the show kicked off with the participation of Elisabeth Preval, wife of Haiti’s current president Rene Preval. She called it a reminder of the fact that Haiti still needs help.
Mrs. Preval wants the help of U.S. museum professionals and conservators in the recovery effort of Haiti’s visual heritage, she told the Associated Press news service. “This is fundamental for our nation,” said the First Lady of the Caribbean nation. “This is our cultural heritage. This is us…My dream and my hope is to make sure the world does not forget Haiti.”
While so much of the news has been bad about the earthquake’s effect on museums, galleries and private collections of Haitian art, there is one small bright spot. At least four of the murals done at mid-century in the Episcopal Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port-au-Prince survived this horrific natural disaster and can be saved. Private dollars from different sources are going toward this effort. The largest donation so far is $276,000 made by the trade association the Broadway League. Each of these entities gave $30,000 to the recovery project -- the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Sciences.. The plan is for U.S. conservators to hand over the reins for most of this meticulous work to Haitian professionals by November, 2011.

--Candice Russell

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Weird Haitian Painting

2010-06-25T08:09:00.002-04:00

Do you like weird art? I guess the answer depends on just how weird in terms of what elements are included. In this case, I am talking about a painting on canvas I bought more than two decades ago in Haiti. This untitled work, measuring sixteen inches by twenty inches, is signed by Jean Claude Mehu, the artist, and dated 1987. It is weird, but also strangely compelling to me, because of its abrogation of one of the first visual art rules -- create a central focus.
There is no central focus in my painting. Rather, there are competing points of interest, including the woman in the foreground pouring a pitcher of water inside on what might be rumpled blue clothing or a rock inside her house! In the background is a tree growing out of a table with a neat blue tablecloth on which three fat rats scamper next to the naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
Other unexplainable elements abound. Priests in long robes gossip in the background next to a bamboo fence, which is being repaired by a workman. Someone else stands on scaffolding to paint one of three houses in the background. A man in a red and white checkered shirt, blue kerchief, and gray knit cap holds what appears to be a small panther under its arms.
But the weirdest and most confounding bit of all is the bushy-tailed orange squirrel that dominates the right corner of the painting. He is sitting next to a bricked pool with water and is so wildly out of perspective that if the squirrel stood on its hind legs, he could be taller than the woman. What to make of Mehu’s wild imagination? I have pondered this painting many times and never put it up for sale because I cannot get to the bottom of it.
The thing is, it’s beautifully painted with meticulous detail. There are multiple narratives going on, none of which make a complete lot of sense. Once I get started looking at this painting, I cannot stop. With these thoughts in mind, maybe Mehu got it right. He created a painting that grabs the viewer’s attention in a way that one doesn’t want to let go.

--Candice Russell

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Haitian Art in South Florida

2010-06-14T07:30:00.002-04:00

For the past two Sundays, I have hosted Haitian art aficionados in my home. One is a veteran collector who lives in Miami, an erudite architect whose taste is eclectic and sophisticated. Another is a folk art lover with a fondness for many cultures, including Haitian. What got this man interested in Haitian art was a gift from Don Francisco, the colorful host of the Spanish-language TV variety show “Sabado Gigante.” It was a Haitian painting that Don Francisco had bought from Dr. Carlos Jara, a fellow Chilean like himself, who lived in Haiti and had a popular gallery there. Carlos was my closest friend before his untimely death in May, 1999. The third visitor was a woman from Hollywood, Florida, who had seen a Vodou flag on my website and wanted to see it in person.

Discussions of Haitian art with people truly interested in knowing more about it are an exciting aspect of being a collector and seller. Looking things up in books, doing Internet research, even staring at paintings of particular beauty are all part of my fascination with this subject. The past two Sundays were filled with these moments and more. I am looking forward to more such wonderful days.

--Candice Russell

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All Arts of the Caribbean

2010-06-09T16:52:00.002-04:00

If you want to experience the Caribbean in its full cultural glory, head to Vinoy Park in downtown Saint Petersburg, Florida on June 12 and 13 for the Tampa Bay Caribbean Carnival. There will be DJs, an ethnic parade, a steel band, internationally renowned Caribeean recording artists, a "mas" costume exhibition, food and crafts, which I would assume include the remarkable art of Haiti. Sounds like a good time.

--Candice Russell

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Music Scene Revives in Haiti

2010-06-02T13:14:00.002-04:00

Leave it to the good and caring journalists and editors at the Miami Herald newspaper to continue to keep Haiti in mind with interesting stories. Congratulations to reporter Jacqueline Charles for her long story about the Haitian music scene and such popular bands as Kreyol La, Barikad Crew and Djakout Mizik. A recent street party authorized by the government involved hundreds of people who paraded through downtown Port-au-Prince in a sort of celebration of life going on after the terrible January earthquake. Charles called the event “the first major dance party in Haiti’s crumbled capital since the 7.0 magnitude, and signaled a return to the vibrant nightlife that has characterized this nation through good times and gloom.”

RAM, led by Richard Morse, the affable manager of the famed Hotel Oloffson in the island nation’s capital, set the crowd ablaze with pleasure in sound, sight and movement. Not surprising, considering that RAM rocks the rafters of the Oloffson every Thursday night (or at least it used to) from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Who better to lead this musical resurgence than RAM with its roots-based music, singers and dancers?

If I were Charles’ assignment editor, I would have her researching the visual arts scene to assess the damage to Haiti’s museums, the seminal Le Centre d’Art that launched so many careers, and galleries. Which artists survived the earthquake and who didn’t make it? What is the aesthetic thrust of the art scene? All of these are good questions begging for answers for people who love Haiti and long for its renaissance.

--Candice Russell

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Florida Filmmakers Visit Haiti

2010-05-27T20:04:00.002-04:00

In its May newsletter, the Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the Caribbean and the Americas, also known as FAVACA, reports that a team from Florida State University’s College of Motion Pictures went to Haiti from April 25 to May 1 of this year. The team was on a mission to make a short documentary. Interviewed for the film were the minister of tourism, the minister of culture and communications, the head of the bureau of civil protection, the Village of Vision in Lamardelle, and the Haiti Hotel Association. FAVACA, based in Tallahassee, Florida, exists to help promote social and economic development throughout the Caribbean and the Americas. Let’s hope the film turns up at a civic film festival near you.

--Candice Russell

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How Will Earthquake Affect Haitian Art?

2010-05-23T18:06:00.000-04:00

Can a devastating natural event impact the direction of Haitian art? The question takes shape in the minds of Haitian art collectors. It is also partially answered in a recent Wall Street Journal article by Miriam Jordan with the headline “The New Realities of Haitian Painting.” With a byline of Jacmel, Haiti, the writer interviews Onel Bazelais, a Haitian painter who cannot help but turn his attention to the crumbled buildings and desperate people he saw in the aftermath of the January 12th earthquake. The painting he holds in a photograph that accompanies the story shows houses without their roofs and people abject in the streets, wondering what to do. The earthquake is inspiring Bazelais.

Other artists are following suit. My friend Eric Jean Louis, an artist who lives in Miami, Florida, says that Michel Monnin, a gallery dealer in Haiti, is paying the artists he knows to document the destruction and survival stories post-earthquake in paintings. While documenting the life around them has always driven Haitian artists, one cannot help but wonder if collectors want to hang paintings of the disaster on their walls. It takes a very special collector to want to own a visual documentation of such enormous horror. Certainly such imagery is not for the majority of Haitian art collectors, though it may be important to historians and museums.

Political coups and military overthrows have been the subject of Haitian paintings in the past twenty years. So have other natural disasters. I own a painting by the late Jean Baptiste Jean that pictures what happens after a flood, with people and debris in a watery mess. While I haven’t tried to sell the painting (because I like it too much), I doubt that many people would be interested in it.

With Haitian art commonly associated with joy and the transcendence of harsh realities, it is anyone’s guess where the artists of now will take their paintings in six or twelve months from now.

--Candice Russell

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Haitian Children View Their World

2010-05-21T17:54:00.002-04:00

In a unique photographic exhibition titled “Haiti Unmasked,” twelve children from Foyer Maurice Sixto, a center in Haiti for child domestic laborers, took pictures of their world with Holga cameras. They attended weekly workshops, went on field trips and profited from the guidance provided by people from the non-profit organization Kids with Cameras, which teaches the art of photography to marginalized children around the world. The results are on view at the MIA Galleries, which is located at Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida in Concessions Hall/South Terminal, between Concourses H and J. The exhibition is free and open to the public, on view now through this August.

--Candice Russell

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Life for Haiti’s Orphans

2010-05-10T08:24:00.000-04:00

A superb one-hour documentary with Soledad O’Brien was produced by and televised on the Cable News Network (CNN) this weekend. “Rescued” spotlights what life is like for orphans in Haiti, both pre and post-earthquake. With footage from several years ago of the boys and girls at the Lighthouse Orphanage in Port-au-Prince, also known as La Maison des Lumieres, the program focused specifically on Cendy, a girl of age six when the earthquake struck last January 12, and a young man named Mackenson, now age eighteen who spent a few formative years at the orphanage after being sold by his family to become an in-house slave or restavec in Haiti.

Days after the earthquake, the already quiet Cendy becomes even more withdrawn. She was given up by her parents, who visit her once for an uncomfortable few minutes, then never return to the orphanage. Mackenson, whose sister was adopted by a family in the United States, only wants to help his home country and works tending the garden at the orphanage. The American couple who run the orphanage take in as many more children as capacity and resources will allow, including a young woman and her newborn baby whose own home collapsed in the earthquake. A triage unit is set up in the courtyard and amputations are performed on suffering adults under the stars. The images are heartbreaking.

But there is hope. This isn’t an orphanage involved in shipping as many kids out of Haiti as possible. The Lighthouse is all about raising Haitian children with education and Christian faith within Haiti. Though many of these children aren’t officially orphans since they have parents, they are officially abandoned. No one in their families wants them. The alternative to being there is working and living on the streets for pennies got from begging because the government has no means to take care of these children. The Lighthouse appears to be doing good work, according to the documentary, by saving lives and putting Haiti first in the hearts of these children, who deserve so much.

--Candice Russell

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May Matters

2010-05-06T20:38:00.000-04:00

Did you know that the month of May is devoted to Haitian heritage? The event is of special interest to anyone living in a city with a large Haitian expatriate population, like Miami, Florida or New York City. On May 18, Haitians celebrate flag day. Just two days later on May 20 is the birthday of Toussaint Louverture, a hero of the Haitian national independence movement. But culture encompasses more than patriotism and history. It’s about art, music, dance, storytelling and getting in touch with the creative roots of a most remarkable culture.

Here is a rundown of what South Floridians can look forward to, along with visitors to the area in a Haitian frame of mind. Today (Friday, May 7th) there will be an exhibition of Haitian art opening tonight from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Regions Bank, 2800 Ponce de Leon Boulevard in Coral Gables. The curator of the show, which runs through June 4th, is well-known Haitian art dealer Michele Frisch, who owns Galerie Marassa in Petionville, Haiti. Admission is free. For more information, telephone 1-786/290-9718.

Another free exhibition is “Contemporary Haitian Memory in Motion, From the Rubble We Rise Once Again” at the Little Haiti Cultural Center, 212 N.E. 59th Terrace in Miami. Curated by Babacar Mbow, the show features master contemporary artists from Port-au-Prince. Hours of the center are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The art is on display through June 30th. For more information, telephone 1-305/960-2969.

Traditional Haitian storytelling with Lilianne Nerette takes place on May 15th from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the North Miami Public Library located at 835 N.E. 132nd Street in North Miami. Admission is free. For more information, telephone 1-305/892-0843.

A Haitian Flag Day Festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at Central Broward Regional Park at 3700 N.W. 11th Place in Fort Lauderdale. Admission is $20 with children under twelve free. Look for Sweet Micky, Alan Cave, Misty Jean, Eddy Francois and others to perform. For more information, telephone 1/954-290-3995.

The Twelfth Annual Compas Festival is set from 12 noon to midnight on May 15th at Bayfront Park, 301 Biscayne Boulevard in Miami. This is the big music festival featuring Barikad Crew, Zekle, T-Vice, Carimi and Kreyol La. Tickets are $35 in advance. For more information, telephone 1/305-945-8814.

A Haitian Flag Day Celebration featuring narrative storytelling, dance and music will take place on the plaza at the Museum of Contemporary Art at 770 N.E. 125th Street in North Miami. Admission for the event, from 6 to 8 p.m. on May 18th, is free. For more information, telephone 1/305/893-6211. In the same location, the North Miami Haiti Relief Fundraiser featuring the Laissez Faire Dance Group will take place on May 21st from 7:30 to 10 p.m. Tickets are $40. For more information, telephone 1/305/895-9815 or 1/305/895-9818. It’s time to celebrate this vibrant culture.

--Candice Russell

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Video Inspires Hope for Haiti

2010-05-04T21:24:00.002-04:00

Well worth seeing and contemplating is the eight-minute video posted on You Tube titled "Haiti -- Get Back Up" or "Ayiti Leve Kanpe." With music provided by the Deominiscan Republic Symphonic Orchestra, the story is told in moving images before and after the awful January earthquake that changed this island nation forever.

The scene is set with idealized images of a peaceful, pretty place -- beaches, waterfalls, schoolchildren walking to work in their clean uniforms, marchands balancing baskets of fruits on their heads before setting up on the street for a day of commerce. Haiti, pre-earthquake, is only this pristine in someone's fantasy of the place. But this is the moviemaker's perspective, not mine.

After the earthquake, which is partially shown in progress, the National Palace crumbles, funerals are held, bodies lie forgotten in the street. The images are appalling but not nearly as bad as some shown on the Cable News Network Television or in newspapers. One building bears graffiti that reads "help me" in French. There are little rowboats going out to sea in desperation to flee the devastation. But there is also hope in the form of drummers, smiling toddlers, and a boy flying a kite. The Haitians will survive.

--Candice Russell

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Marvelous Metal Sculptures Come to Miami

2010-04-20T21:38:00.002-04:00

An under-sung medium within Haitian art is metal sculptures, carefully crafted from the recycling of metal cylinders used for transporting all manner of goods. Master artist Serge Jolimeau and Michee Ramil Remy have their creations on display in the lobby of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in North Miami, Florida through May 30. The museum is located at 770 N.E. 125th Street in North Miami, Florida and the telephone is 305/893-6211.

On view are the artists’ originals for the 2009 Clinton Global Citizen Awards, on loan from the office of former U.S. President Bill Clinton. He was recently in Miami to discuss the Clinton Global Initiative at the University of Miami on how to rebuild Haiti. According to a report in the Miami Herald newspaper, Clinton released a statement: “As the Haitian people work to build their country back better…it has become more important than ever to assist Haitian artists and workers in their efforts to produce and sell their wonderful arts and crafts.” Amen to that!

--Candice Russell

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BENEFIT FOR HAITI IN MIAMI

2010-04-02T20:35:00.000-04:00

While the troubles of Haiti since the earthquake three months ago have largely fallen off the world's radar screen, some people and TV programs are keeping the attention where it should be. "Artists Support Haiti" is a benefit auction at the University of Miami Lowe Art Museum in Coral Gables (Miami), Florida. It is set for April 8 from 6 to 9 p.m. and a $10 donation is suggested. What visitors will find is wonderful Haitian art and American art, live music, food and beverages. All proceeds benefit the University of Miami Global Institute/Project Medishare, which has been working to help the people of Haiti with medical, educational agricultural needs. Physicians and other health care professionals affiliated with this project have been in Haiti since the earthquake treating the injured and working to build permanent medical facilities there.

The popular American TV show "Dancing with the Stars" featured dancers from Haiti in a tribute to what devastation took place there on January 12. Good for the show's producers to make people once again mindful of this wonderful country and remarkable creative talent.

--Candice Russell

South Florida Exhibition by Wonderful Haitian Artist

2010-03-31T08:24:00.002-04:00

When ever the remarkable Miami resident Haitian-American/global artist Edouard Duval-Carrie has a solo exhibition, it is cause for celebration. Always evolving, taking his culture and recent events into perspective, the artist works as a painter, sculptor and scholar. Currently, he has a one-man show on view at the MIA Galleries (MIA is short for Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida, where the show is located) in the Central Terminal Gallery in Concourse E, just past the security checkpoint. On view through May 15, “Memoire Sans Histoire” is free and open to the public.

In the oversized keeper postcard invitation to the show, Duval-Carrie writes beautifully about the latest body blow to Haiti -- the terrible earthquake of two months ago. He writes: “What astounds me is the resilience of the people. We know that we live a precarious life and as such we know that adversity is the rule. Rather than succumb to despair and anguish, we keep a brave face and more often than not we would rather sing, or as in my case, paint!

“I personally believe that most artists are, in one way or another, reflections of their immediate surroundings. The confrontations of the routine of daily life are bound to affect and influence their personal visions of the world. This general tendency simplifies my answers to inquiries concerning the relative importance of popular culture in the context of the contemporary art world. But with the advent of a rapid globalization and the proliferation of information at all levels, this permits everyone, and particularly artists, not only to take their ideas from a global well, but to react and ultimately act when information is close to their field of interest. The drama of the earthquake aftermath in Haiti is a case in point when it comes to me as an artist.”

The exhibition includes images of an ocean voyage and a conquering hero on horseback, perhaps a revolutionary hero or Saint Jacques Majeur, often portrayed on Vodou flags like this. The palette is more somber than the artist has used in recent years, perhaps reflecting a more contemplative view. In any case, please visit the exhibition and judge for yourself

--Candice Russell

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Superb Painter Passes Away

2010-03-28T18:36:00.000-04:00

It is with great regret that news comes of the passing of Haitian painter Wilson Bigaud. He died on March 22, 2010 at 2 a.m., according to an email I received. His death follows the destruction of a major work by Bigaud, who was one of several contributors to the Biblical murals of Episcopal Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port-au-Prince. The church and its visual legacy dating back to the 1940s crumbled during the January 12 earthquake, which also decimated Le Centre d’Art, the personal collection of Georges Nader’s home/museum totaling many thousands of paintings, and who knows how many irreplaceable paintings and other artworks in galleries, offices, museums and private homes throughout the nation’s capital, suburbs and beyond.

Bigaud’s rise to fame began at the behest of the magnificent painter Hector Hyppolite, who brought him to Le Centre d’Art in 1946. A titan in the first generation of Haitian artists, Bigaud warranted a full chapter in Selden Rodman’s seminal book “Where Art is Joy: The First Forty Years of Haitian Art.” Rodman conceived the idea of the Biblical murals at the cathedral and oversaw their execution. Bigaud painted “The Marriage Feast at Cana” during which Christ turns water into wine at a country wedding, when he was only twenty years old. Sadly, vandals ruined the original mural before it was almost finished, so the artist had to begin again on this special creation.

Some people, including Rodman believed that Bigaud’s nervous breakdowns, which occurred between 1957 and 1961, had a deleterious effect on his art, meaning that he never painted as well after these episodes. I disagree. His paintings continued to be popular with collectors for decades afterward with no marked toll on his evocative artwork, including scenes of family and leisure as well as Vodou personages.

In the recent exhibition “Allegories of Haitian Life from the Jonathan Demme Collection” at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, Florida and accompanying book, which I co-authored with Axelle Liautaud, there were five paintings by Bigaud, an indication of his place in Haitian art. They included the peaceful “Beach Scene” (c. 1949), the riotously energetic “Carnival Costumes” (1954), and “Zombie” (c. 1965), of a person without a soul or a will being led from the graveyard. Bigaud returned to this last theme again and again in his artwork. In my personal collection is a painting of this same theme by the renowned artist, who is included in every published overview of the history of Haitian art. With soft colors reflecting the dead of night, the scene of a kind of resurrection takes place in a rural landscape. It is one of my favorite paintings.

The loss of Bigaud is enough to make one wonder who will future generations of scholars and art collectors be talking about in Haitian art 100 years from now. Will others reach the heights achieved by this remarkable man?

--Candice Russell

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Trees for Haiti Can Help All Haitians

2010-03-22T15:06:00.002-04:00

Miami Herald writer Andres Oppenheimer had a superb idea when, shortly after the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, he encouraged people around the world to donate money to plant trees in Haiti as part of a massive re-forestation effort. Responding to his call, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations launched “A tree for a child in Haiti campaign.” Its campaign states: “your donation pays for an avocado, mango or other fruit tree seedling, its planting, a small amount of fertilizer and watering and weeding for the first year.” This sounds good and worth getting behind.

Why this is important is explained by Oppenheimer in the newspaper: “Reforestation has long been one of the main reasons behind Haiti’s chronic poverty. For more than a century, people have cut down about 98 per cent of Haiti’s trees to use as firewood or charcoal for cooking. That has left the ground almost useless for agriculture. It also dried up water supplies.

“At the same time deforestation causes devastating floods. When it storms in Haiti’s mountains, the water flows down into nearby villages with nothing to absorb it or stop it. Thousands die.”

Oppenheimer’s suggestion is that Haitians living in other countries each donate $5 for the coast of one tree, much like Jewish people in other countries have done to help Israel with their money paying for the planting of 240 million trees! This savvy journalist also suggests that cruise ship passengers to Labadie, Haiti get on board with a “One Tree Per Tourist” campaign that will aid the cause. No one can argue with the wisdom of his thoughts and the necessity for taking action in light of so much suffering. To follow through, the website to visit is
http://www.fao.org.

--Candice Russell

The Death of an Important Person

2010-03-20T07:43:00.000-04:00

It is with regret that news must be reported about the passing of a great lady, Francine Murat, the long-time director of Le Centre d’Art in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. As the standard bearer for this seminal institution within Haitian art for several decades, Murat was instrumental in the careers of an untold number of artists. Since the building itself was destroyed in the January 12th earthquake and with no one at the reins, one cannot help but wonder who will resurrect Le Centre d’Art and shepherd its development in decades to come.

The death of Murat was expressed beautifully in a letter by Fritz Racine, President of the Haitian Art Society, hereby quoted in toto: “Adieu Francine: The Haitian Art Society in Washington, D.C. is deeply saddened by the news of the death of Francine Murat, Director of the Centre d’Art in Port-au-Prince. Francine died on February 25, 2010, six weeks following the collapse of the Centre d’Art building during the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti on January 12.

“Francine has been associated with the Centre d’Art since its opening in 1944, first as administrative assistant to the founder DeWitt Peters, then as its director for over forty years until her death. Her extended professional service has earned her public recognition as an authority on Haitian art. Francine Murat has carried out with grace, competence and perseverance -- and often under trying circumstances -- the remarkable tradition of this unique and longest living art institution of Haiti.

“The Haitian Art Society salutes the departure of this icon of Haitian art. May her beautiful soul rest in peace.”

My own memories of Murat are lovely. I recall her quiet presence overseeing Le Centre d’Art. She was a tall, thin woman of elegance, with her head wrapped in a colorful scarf. If you knew enough to ask about the special stash of paintings locked in a closet on the second floor, she would accommodate an avid art collector’s request and leave the person alone to pick through the treasures for purchase. She also allowed visitors into the room housing the center’s permanent collection of Haitian art. I remember the poignancy of paintings by Jasmin Joseph, whose allegorical paintings of anthropomorphic animals told stories about Haitian life.

Murat kindly accommodated an odd request I made of her by telephone, after my then-husband and I had taken a wonderful art-buying trip to Haiti one year. After returning home, I developed the many photos I had taken and marveled at a particular painting we had found at Le Centre d’Art. It was a large canvas by Lionel Saint Eloi of a Vodou ceremony, with musicians, prayer, celebration and sacrifice going on in different quadrants of the painting. How had we passed it by? I found the phone number of Le Centre d’Art, Murat set a price, and the transaction was in process. Soon, the painting was mailed to us, to our eternal delight.

Rendered in muted colors, with a hand-painted statement on the back of the canvas about how the artist made a commitment to the integrity of his profession, the painting was (and is) a dazzler. Not surprisingly, it was chosen by director George Bolge of the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Boca Raton, Florida, for an exhibition of Haitian paintings in 2004. It is one of my favorite paintings.

Haiti and Haitian art collectors everywhere will miss Francine Murat and her benevolence to all who cherish Haitian art.

--Candice Russell

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Helping Haiti

2010-03-01T10:01:00.000-05:00

Life remains hard for the survivors of the earthquake on January 12th. My friend Mr. Lange Rosner reports that art business can be transacted, though the streets are hard to drive. Still to be discovered is how many of Haiti's most famous artists in all media are alive and uninjured.

I am often asked about legitimate organizations in need of donations. One of the best is the University of Miami Haiti Project. A recent ad taken in the Miami Herald by this worthy group reads: "As the first medical team on the ground, UM Miller School of Medicine physicians and staff treated more than 250 critically injured patients within forty-eight hours of arriving in Haiti. Since January 13th, nearly 300 UM doctors, nurses and other personnel have served in Haiti, where we opened a 240-bed tent hospital with operating rooms and advanced technologies. Our staff has transferred dozens of the most critically injured to the United States for care."

The University of Miami campus in Coral Gables, Florida is holding fund raising campaigns for essential items needed in Haiti. Donations can be mailed to the UM Global Institute and mailed to: UM Global Institute, P.O. Box 248073, Coral Gables, Florida 33124.

--Candice Russell

AID AND PRESERVATION EFFORTS

2010-02-19T15:54:00.000-05:00

Perhaps you were one of the fortunate museum visitors to the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, Florida or other U.S. venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York to see the wonderful hand-made quilts of Gee’s Bend. Fashioned by a group of African-American women in a remote area of Alabama, these bed covers bespoke of their makers’ innate sense of superior color, design and technique. Prized by collectors and justly lionized by art critics, the quilts are part of the women’s heritage.

Now their artistry is being put toward a generous effort to help the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. On Saturday, March 13th, some of these quilts will be auctioned off at the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in Miami, Florida’s design district at 3530 North Miami Avenue. Festivities get underway at 7 p.m. and the auction begins at 8:30 p.m. Thank you to acclaimed quilters Mary Lee Bendolph, Loretta P. Bennett and Gunnie Pettway for donating these prized fabrics, which range in price from $15,000 to $20,000. They are also making a special quilt for the occasion. Let’s hope some high rollers and representatives from corporations with an eye toward helping Haiti are among the bidders that night. All funds will be donated to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund. (For more information, telephone 305/573-2700 or visit the website
www.bernicesteinbaumgallery.com).

Angela Charlton of the Associated Press, with an article datelined Paris, France, wrote in the Miami Herald this week about an official who worries that bulldozers in Haiti are endangering its art and architectural heritage. “There is a temptation to demolish everything,” says Daniel Elie, director of Haiti’s governmental Institute for the Preservation of National Heritage. “When the bulldozers come, it’s fatal.”

United Nations officials believe that preserving the country’s churches, artwork and mementoes from its slave result, which ended with the establishment of the world’s first independent black republic, are essential for the nation. Cathedrals and other buildings dating back to the 17th century are barely standing or reduced to rubble. One cannot help but wonder if the re-building effort will include attempts to duplicate these buildings or start from scratch with other designs.

Elie’s agency is compiling lists of buildings that should be protected to send around to other government agencies, journalist Charlton writes. She continues: “Elie is joining Haiti’s culture and communications minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue and UNESCO officials for talks this week to determine the most urgent needs for restoring damaged historical and cultural sites.”

Only time will tell how much of Haiti’s precious paintings, sculptures, Vodou flags, artifacts and buildings still exist and how many others can be saved, repaired and rebuilt. And will the world continue to pay attention to Haiti and its remarkable people? This is a country that deserves global attention for decades to come.

--Candice Russell

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Mourning and Helping

2010-02-16T15:03:00.001-05:00

While other news outlets have moved on to other stories, let's give credit to the Miami Herald newspaper and CNN-TV for keeping Haiti in mind. A beautiful story written by Jacqueline Charles in the Herald details the cancellation of Carnival in Haiti, the first time that has ever happened in anyone's memory. She also wrote about the three days of mourning for the 212,000 victims who died in that terrible event and its aftermath.

In a sidebar, Charles wrote about Carnival photos taken by renowned photographer Daniel Kedar that are being sold at Chelsea Galleria in Miami, Florida from now until April. They include images that range in price from $300 to $4,500 and range in size from fifteen inches by nineteen inches to forty inches by sixty inches. To learn more, telephone the gallery at 305/576-2950.

Sean Penn, the Oscar-winning actor, just returned from Haiti. He called it "an apocalypse, worse than anyone had ever seen before." He is working with Partners in Health to forestall what he sees as a disaster in the public health realm once the rainy season begins in late March. Pray for Haiti and support Haitian artists by buying their works where ever you find them.

--Candice Russell

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Suffering, Loss and Survival

2010-02-07T15:48:00.002-05:00

A friend in Arizona sent me a copy of a recent Wall Street Journal article titled "Art Trove Is Among Nation's Losses" by Pooja Bratia. It's about the decimation of the mansion and museum owned by Georges Nader Senior, one of the country's first and most famous gallery owners. What the January 12th earthquake claimed from him was a visual history of 12,000 artworks lost in the 35-room home. Son Georges Nader Junior estimates the collection was worth between $30 and $100 million. Gone for good are irreplaceable works by Haitian masters including Hector Hyppolite, Philome Obin and Wilson Bigaud.

The same article speaks of the ruined murals in the Episcopal Holy Trinity Cathedral by several well-known painters and the questionable future of the Haitian art scene, in light of widespread devastation. What kind of art can come out of such tragedy? If it happens to be art expressing pain, in direct contrast to most of Haitian art, will this art find buyers used to associating Haitian art with joy?

We now know for sure that Saint Soleil painter Levoy Exil and Vodou flag master Jean Baptiste Jean Joseph are alive. So is my good friend Mr. Lange Rosner, whose brick house in Croix-des-Missions withstood the earthquake. Mr. Rosner telephoned me today, which was a blessing because numerous phone calls to his line in Haiti produced no result. "I was in the street when it happened," Mr. Rosner told me. "I went home and found my family was okay. I was very, very happy. Then I cried. It was a big emotion for me."

Even now, says Mr. Rosner, there are "a lot of people dead. You find them everywhere. Port-au-Prince is finished." While he has a home to live in, he is living in the street like perhaps millions of others for fear of another earthquake or a crippling aftershock. Food and water are scarce and hard to come by. And traffic is difficult.

The church-going Mr. Rosner is the favorite person in his neighborhood, as he gives gifts to the children who live near him. He is a driver by profession, now with nothing to do but try to survive. He has a beautiful wife, several young children, and a niece and nephew to raise. I want to help him and will send him money via Western Union on Tuesday. Should you want to do the same and have your money go directly to a very good human being in trouble, rather than to the administrative costs and overhead to a large non-profit organization, his telephone number is 011-509-3757-0306. If anyone knows of a way to legally get Mr. Rosner out of Haiti for good, and then his family to follow, please let me know. Thank you.

--Candice Russell

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Saving Haiti's Artistic History

2010-01-29T16:00:00.002-05:00

An email today from Frazier Meade sounds the alarm for urgent action in regard to Le Centre d'Art, the Port-au-Prince launching pad of many artistic careers from Hector Hyppolite and Rigaud Benoit to Jorelus Joseph, and what may be left of the Saint Trinity Church, also in the city, and home to many irreplaceable wall murals with a Biblical theme. He is reaching out to non-profit organizations, embassies in the U.S., Canada, and France, galleries, collectors, and individuals to help safeguard what art is left in both locations with an eye to long-term conservation and preservation.

Meade is working in partnership with Axelle Liautaud, whose celebrated art gallery in Petionville excited many collectors over the years. On January 21st, she posted this email: "I am very confident that we will get the fence and security for the Centre tomorrow or the day after. But I doubt with the quantities of displaced persons that we can find a tarp of the dimensions needed. We are also trying to find amongst the crew that are here for some tarps that are not being used, so they help retrieve the art at the Center and put it in the storage area of the museum. Funds need to be raised soon for the preservation of our culture. This is not a futile battle. People who have been hurt the way we have been are going to need the help of their culture to go on living."

The good news is that fundraising toward these buildings and artwork has begun. Already Pan American Projects is raising money for the re-building of Le Centre d'Art. To donate, visit the website www.panamericanart.com/store.

--Candice Russell

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Stories of Hope

2010-01-27T11:26:00.002-05:00

Long-time Haitian human rights advocate, Haitian art collector and filmmaker Jonathan Demme spoke to CNN-TV's Alina Cho this week about his love for the country so eviscerated by the recent earthquake. He made two documentaries in Haiti, including "Haiti: Dreams of Democracy" about the fall of Baby Doc Duvalier's regime in the mid-1980s. With Jonathan's permission, I was proud to host a showing of the film at Books and Books, an independent bookstore in Coral Gables, Florida many years ago, along with a discussion afterward. In the audience that night was Dr. Paul Farmer, another passionate advocate for Haiti. We gave all the proceeds to Dr. Farmer, who was going to Haiti the next day to set up a hospital.

Demme says he plans to go to Haiti within six months to a year to make another film about Haiti and its recovery from the event that decimated Jacmel, Leogane and too much of Port-au-Prince. His own personal collection of Haitian art was shown in Miami Beach at the Bass Museum several years ago in a show I co-curated with Axelle Liautaud called "Allegories of Haitian Life from the Jonathan Demme Collection." He has some marvelous, irreplaceable paintings and sculptures, including all the masters like Georges Liautaud and Hector Hyppolite among many others. I hope that Jonathan explores the artistic side of Haiti in this new era of recovery.

Another hopeful story comes from a charity based in Boca Raton, Florida, which revived a tiny school in Cite Soleil, a Port-au-Prince slum in the fall of 2009. It had closed due to lack of funds. Annette Scalzo, a middle school teacher, and Reverend Gary Guerrier, a Baptist minister, are the co-founders of the Children's Project for Haiti. They found the means to re-open the school serving the poorest of the poor in Haiti. While the school survived the earthquake, the children need help. To contribute, visit the web site www.childrensprojectforhaiti.org or send a check through the mail to: The Children's Project for Haiti, P.O. Box 810962, Boca Raton, Florida 33481-0962.

--Candice Russell

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Stories of Help and Survival in Haiti

2010-01-24T16:57:00.002-05:00

Did you see the wonderful televised benefit last Friday night for the earthquake in Haiti? With singers like Rihanna, Jay-Z, Beyonce, and Haitian-born Emeline Michel, the event raised $58 million, a figure that will increase from sales of downloaded music and CDs. The world is finally paying attention to Haiti, which has suffered so much.

Yet there is still no word on so many people, including the artists who make Haitian paintings, Vodou flags, and metal crafts that are the visual ambassadors for this country. With this fact in mind, I am personally donating 10 per cent of all sales on my website www.Haitianna.com in 2010 to earthquake relief in Haiti.

For those interested in up-to-date news, CNN on TV is doing a better job than any other news organization. Christiane Amanpour devoted the full hour of her Sunday afternoon program to Haiti and reported from that country in a live transmission. She interviewed the president of the International Monetary Fund and the head of the United Nations Mission in Haiti about the country's eventual redevelopment, as well as Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat, who lives in Miami, Florida.

Here's an important tip, courtesy of CNN: if you want to check out streets and neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, the TV network has a 360-degree camera (actually, eleven cameras shot the images) that can be adjusted up or down. Log on to a computer and type in "CNN.com/Haiti360" and look around.

A friend asked me if she could help someone directly. An art dealer who lives in Haiti named Bazil Justin did manage to survive. I received an email from him, describing a trip to the Dominican Republic for food. He is with sixty people, all of whom need help. To contact him directly, his cellphone number is 011-509-3-829-518-9291.

Amazing stories of survival continue to come out of Haiti, as they will for months and years ahead. National Public Radio aired an interview with Romel Joseph, a Juilliard Music School-trained violinist and head of a music school in Port-au-Prince with 238 students. Thankfully, all of the students were off the premises during the time of the earthquake on January 12th. But Joseph and five other people were on site. This almost totally musician lost his pregnant wife to the tragedy. Ironically, the earthquake occurred ten years to the day that the school had burned down in the year 2000.

Joseph, interviewed at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami where he is recovering from injuries to his hands, was trapped under the rubble for many hours. Prayer and meditation occupied some of his time, but the bulk of it was devoted to mentally playing different concertos. Music got him through. He is confident that he will paly violin again and be able to teach once more. "The school is a very important part of my life," says Joseph. "Haiti has very little art education and music. We're going to reconstruct the school as soon as possible. I need more than an earthquake to stop my work in Haiti."

-- Candice Russell

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Help for Haiti

2010-01-17T20:55:00.001-05:00

Tuesday, January 12th will live in infamy as a date of great historical importance in Haiti. It has been almost a week since that afternoon when a devastating earthquake leveled much of Port-au-Prince and surrounding cities in Haiti, leaving millions of people homeless and injured, with countless others dead. The news reports from all television stations are heartbreaking and compelling in equal measure, with stories and pictures of human suffering on a scale so large it is hard to fathom.

With telephone lines down and computers unable to make contact with people in Haiti, waiting became the name of the game for relatives and loved ones of Haitians outside the country., myself included. The state of unknowingness is particularly painful when punctuated by yet another news story about a collapsing concrete building.

There is some good news to report about those who survived this catastrophe. My friend Lange Rosner, who lives with his wife and children in Croix-des-Bouquets near Port-au-Prince, made it, as did his family. The same is true for Axelle Liautaud, whose Gingerbread Gallery in Miami, Florida and Petionville, Haiti has a long and storied reputation for selling outstanding Haitian art in all media. She and I worked together co-curating “Allegories of Haitian Life from the Jonathan Demme Collection,” an exhibition of art from the personal collection of filmmaker Demme, who made the movies “Silence of the Lambs” and “Philadelphia,” among many others.

Since I live surrounded and nourished by Haitian art every day of my life, I cannot help but wonder and worry about the fate of so many artist including great Vodou flag makers Myrlande Constant, Georges Valris, Yves Telemaque, Lerisson Dubreus, and Mireille Delice. They all live in Port-au-Prince. I know that Maxon Jean Louis, a wonderful painter, is alive because his cousin, another terrific artist and Miami, Florida resident named Eric Jean Louis, told me so. But Eric’s brother Henri Jean Louis, who is also a fine painter, and their mother, haven’t been heard from as yet. What about so many others, including Gerard Fortune or La Fortune Felix who lives in St. Marc? Only time will tell.

Remarkable stories continue to make the rounds of media. Byron Pitts of CBS-TV was asked about moments of his experience in Haiti that he will never forget. He spoke this morning of people’s limbs being amputated by rusty hacksaws in the hospital, an idea so horrific as to defy comprehension. And then he mentioned a scene of transcendent union among the patients of that same hospital who began to sing in unison the Haitian national anthem. The Haitians are artists like no other in the world and people of remarkable strength. I hope that they finally begin to get the respect for these and other things that they so justly deserve.

In the weeks, months, and years ahead, one cannot help but hope and pray that the generosity of the world toward Haiti isn’t just a temporary gesture of goodwill in the face of disaster but a long-term commitment to getting the country back on its feet. Once that is accomplished, and people are decently housed, fed and employed to a degree that has never been seen before in Haiti, it will be time to address the question of cultural preservation.

Along that line, I am nervous to know what happened to the museums and galleries in Port-au--Prince, where the visual legacy of the nation is housed. Are they standing? Is any of the art able to be retrieved and saved? And what about the libraries and the colleges? The Saint Trinity Episcopal Church with the Biblical murals created by Wilson Bigaud, Gabriel Leveque, Castera Bazile, Rigaud Benoit, Toussaint Auguste and three other artists is a source of wonder, painted in the late 1940s under the direction of the late author Selden Rodman. Is this handsome edifice with its priceless treasures still standing?

To help the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, there are certain charities I recommend including the Children of Haiti Enhancement Foundation at
www.cohef.org, founded fifteen years ago by Elsie Craig, a Haitian-American in Miami, Florida. She emailed me today that the schools that her non-profit charity supports in Kenscoff, Haiti were destroyed by the earthquake, leaving the students and teachers homeless. Judy Hoffman, who owns a marketing firm in Lake Worth, Florida, runs a charity for children with art emphasis in Jacmel, Haiti. While this city twenty miles from Port-au-Prince has sustained extensive damage, the art school is intact, though students and staff are sleeping in the streets with nowhere else to call home. To donate to Judy’s charity, visit the website www.artforhaitichildren.org.

Other worthy organizations to receive donations are Doctors without Borders because their hospitals in the capital of Haiti were destroyed, Food for the Poor, Americares, and the new non-governmental foundation established by the coming together of two former U.S. Presidents -- Bill Clinton and George Bush. It is called
www.ClintonBushHaitiFund.org. Pray for Haiti.

--Candice Russell

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Shamanic Thoughts for the New Year

2010-01-04T08:44:00.000-05:00

Sunday, January 3, 2010

A friend, Haitian art collector and customer visited my home today in order to purchase a superb Vodou flag by master artist Jean Baptiste Jean Joseph. She mentioned how she arranges her collection of small to medium size Vodou flags on a wall in her home and the power that emanates from them. This friend made the connection between the intense spirituality of the flags, which are used in Vodou ceremonies and thought to have considerable influence on the outcome, and shamanism.

When she left, I looked up the meaning of a shaman, a practitioner of shamanism. That person is a medium between the visible and the spirit world, which is the exact definition of a Vodou flag's function when in spiritual use. Vodou flags are held aloft on poles held by special celebrants and "danced" around the Vodou temple, in order to make contact with the unseen pantheon of the spirits. That is why flags are glittering and beautiful, to attract and honor the spirits. When not in use, flags are folded and carefully laid aside so as to renew their spiritual strength.

Spiritual people of all beliefs profess attraction to the innate qualities of Vodou flags. Erzulie, with her universal symbol of the heart, stands for love of every variety, which accounts for her popularity among collectors. But the masculine spirits, like Grand Bois, the spirit of the forest and a healer, is alluring for others. Explore the qualities of Haitian Vodou flags on my website www.Haitianna.com, where I have written about each one.

--Candice Russell

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Major Haitian Art Sale is Boon to Smart Collectors

2009-11-30T23:13:00.000-05:00

November 28, 2009

My holiday in-home Haitian art sale happens only once each year. This time it's Sunday, December 13th and Sunday, December 20th, both days from 12 noon to 5 p.m. Many new arrivals from Haiti, including ten Vodou flags by the master Jean Baptiste Jean Joseph and spirited metal sculptures from several artists, are included in this year's eclectic mix of art. Smart collectors looking to find the rare and different will savor items from my personal art collection including works by master painters.

Going beyond Haiti, I will have masks from Africa and Mexico (as well as Haiti), folk art from American notables including Howard Finster, B.F. Perkins and Mose Tolliver, and unique hand-made ceramics, both decorative and functional, as well as Mexican folk art in a variety of forms. The idea is to sell precious items in search of caring owners who value indigenous cultures and the genius of the artists who create these wonderful works of art.

If you are interested in receiving an invitation, please email me at LuLuGatos@gmail.com. Come and join the fun.

--Candice Russell

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Haitian Art Bidders Succeed at Auction

2009-11-22T19:55:00.000-05:00

Sunday, November 22, 2009

The final tally is in for the recent Slotin Folk Art Auction in Buford, Georgia, open to absentee bidders via telephone and the Internet, as well as in person. Though the focus of the auction was primarily on American folk art, a small, select sampling of art from Haiti was included. Religious Vodou bottles, three out of four of which were painted rather than sequined and beaded, went for a reasonable $200. Unpainted metal sculptures, including "Couple with Turtle" by Serge Jolimeau, sold for $600, well under the estimate of $1,000 to $2,000. A lovely female encased in a pink bubble painted by the late Louisiane Saint Fleurant sold for $375, while other Saint Soleil masters were also sold including Prospere Pierre-Louis, whose "Yellow Face with Snakes" went for $550 -- above the high estimate of $400. It is an outstanding painting, offset by yellow flowers in four corners. Levoy Exil's "Abstract Faces on Blue," measuring 28 inches square, sold for a mere $300, half of the low estimate for the work at $600.

It's rare to find a painting by Francoise Eliassaint ever at auction and perhaps collectors knew this. Her "Madonna with Angels," measuring 16 inches by 24 inches, went for $600. Gerard Paul, represented by two paintings, went for low prices including $250 for "Boat Concert," measuring nearly 31 inches by 23 inches. That seems to be a big bargain. I absolutely loved the painting "Two Pink Women with a Yellow Cross," measuring 12 inches by 16 inches by Makenol Profil. It went for a shocking $50, one-fourth the low estimate of $200.

Who knows what treasures will be offered in the next Slotin Folk Art Auction? The good news for Haitian artists is that attention is being paid, even if the prices that the works are worth aren't being realized. It's largely a buyer's market and savvy buyers know it while snapping up exceptional art at pauper's prices.

--Candice Russell

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To Buy Haitian Art and Help Haiti

2009-11-06T13:39:00.000-05:00

November 5, 2009

Once again, collectors, gallery owners and museum curators with money in their pockets and budgets have a fabulous opportunity to go bargain-hunting for Haitian art. The occasion: the fall two-day Slotin Folk Art Auction in Buford, Georgia. which takes place this weekend. It begins on Saturday, November 7th at 10 a.m., followed by a continuation on Sunday, November 8th at 12 noon. Photos of all items, mostly American folk art, can be found on the website www.slotinfolkart.com. There are no reserve prices, which means the estimates are just that -- if there are no bidders at the expected opening prices, buyers can bid lower and walk away with some real treasures.

Along with the great paintings by folk art masters like Bill Traylor, Howard Finster and Clementine Hunter, among many others, there is a choice sampling of art from Haiti. A Sully Obin painting "Soldier" is estimated at an impossibly low $200 to $300. Also under-estimated at $200 to $400 is "Yellow Face with Snakes," an outstanding framed painting by Prospere Pierre-Louis measuring 23.5 inches by 27.5 inches. A central sun with four balanced pale yellow flowers in the composition makes it especially serene and pleasing. There is even a rare painting called "Woman" by Louisianne Saint Fleurant, estimated at between $800 and $1,200. Complete charm is exuded by Gerard Paul's "Boat Concert," estimated at $200 to $400. A stellar Pierre Joseph Valcin "Dancing in the Garden" is estimated at between $300 and $400.

Vodou bottles with more painting and collage elements than beading, metal sculptures of powerful dimension by Murat Brierre, and an other-wroldly "Yellow Man" painting by Lony, a name unknown to me, round out this small, superb selection of art for auction. There is some great stuff here so good luck to all the bidders in securing these special pieces. To email the auction house, write to auction@slotinfolkart.com. To telephone, dial 1-770-532-1115.

Helping Haiti is the point of another event. "Rebuild Haiti: Mission Possible!" is the name of a fundraiser to be held Friday, November 13th at the Coral Gables Congregational Church, 3010 De Soto Boulevard in Coral Gables, Florida (across from the Biltmore Hotel) from 7 to 10 p.m. Attendees are encouraged to R.S.V.P. by November 10th. There will be a silent auction, wine reception, entertainment and display of Haitian crafts. The special guest is Edwidge Danticat, the famed Haitian-American author and 2009 recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award. All money generated will go to Haitian development programs that promote sustainability. For more information or to R.S.V.P., telephone 1-305/448-7421.

--Candice Russell

Silent Auction Fundraising Event

2009-10-18T17:23:00.000-04:00

Another opportunity to buy great Haitian art exists for residents and visitors of Washington, D.C. From Octboer 23 to November 6, the Embassy of Haitia, in collaboration with Studio Exhibitions, is presenting "Back to Back/Face to Face: The Art of Haiti and the Dominican Republic." This silent auction fundraising event will benefit Art Creation Foundation for Children in Jacmel, Haiti. You don't have to be a bigwig or someone with connections to President Obama to attend. It is free and open to the public.

With an opening reception on October 23 from 6 to 9 p.m., artists participating in the show will attend. They include Turgo Bastien, Christinne Maryse Coliman, Blondel Joseph, Claes Gabriel, Nadine Lafond, Yvon Fleurival, Iliana Garon, and Scherezade Garcia. The embassy is located at 2311 Massachusetts Avenue Northwest in the nation's capital. We hope that a lot of money is raised for a very worthy cause and people leave the event with Haitian art in hand, becoming unintentional ambassadors for the largest outpouring of superior art in the world.

--Candice Russell

Major Benefit with Major Haitian Art

2009-09-21T12:10:00.000-04:00

September 20, 2009

While the art market languishes along with the global economy, even the giants in the field are suffering. Recently the auction house Sotheby's reported a shocking drop in revenues internationally, from $50 billion to $25 billion -- a fifty per cent drop in one year. That includes everything from French Impressionist paintings to rock'n'roll memorabilia and Chinese jade.

In a creative way to get people's attention, Aderson Exume is selling off a portion of his private collection of Haitian art in order to benefit six Haitian non-profit organizations (unspecified in his email to me). The event takes place on Saturday, September 26th from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Washington, D.C. home of author Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, often seen as a political commentator on television, and his wife Marcia Dyson. The entrance fee for this afternoon of Haitian art, cuisine and music is a pricey $250 per person, so the casual or unmonied art lover can't even get in the door.

This is a high rollers' art sale. Included among the artists are such impeccable names as Hector Hyppolite and Philome Obin, reportedly represented by two masterpieces each, Rigaud Benoit, Castera Bazile, and Wilson Bigaurd. The list of names to make a true collector salivate continues with Gerard Valcin, Marcel Wah, Georges Liautaud, Gabriel Leveque, Louverture Poisson, Alexander Gregoire, Pierre-Joseph Valcin, Gerard Paul (rare to find), La Fortune Felix and Jacques Richard Chery. There is even one work by Jean-Claude Legagneur, whose enormous canvases and modernist style are popular with wealthy Haitian expatriates.

I wish everyone at the event all the best and sincerely hope that truckloads of money are raised because Haiti needs help. For more information about the art to be sold at the show, please email Mr. Exume at exumefineart@aol.com.

--Candice Russell

A Great Haitian Humanitarian Has Died

2009-06-21T21:45:00.000-04:00

June 21, 2009

The Reverend Gerard Jean-Juste probably did more for Haitian refugees in South Florida and, by extension, all of the country in his lifetime, than anyone else. A Catholic priest and a humanitarian, he defended the rights of this beleaguered minority and lived to see the growth of Haitian political power in Miami as more and more Haitians won elective office. So with these facts in mind, it is no wonder that when he died on March 27th following complications from a stroke and respiratory problems, people came by the thousands to mourn his passing.

According to a timeline in the Miami Herald, Jean-Juste moved to Miami in 1978 and was hired as the director of the Haitian Refugee Center. Eventually he had his own grass roots political watchdog group called Veye Yo. He returned to Haiti in 1991 for the inauguration of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first democratically elected president in Haiti's history. But arrests on the basis of weapons possession and murder and suspension from his parisih duties at St. Claire Catholic Church were signs that he could be a divisive figure at a time when taking a stand in Haiti can have dire consequences. Released from jail, he continued to officiate mass and feed neighborhood children. All the charges against him were eventually dropped.

Last year he received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of San Francisco in recognition of his advocacy work. It was the generous, caring Jean-Juste that drew 3,000 people inside Miami's Notre Dame d'Haiti Catholic Church in early June, while thousands more stood outside in the rain. The Haitian community has lost an important man, an eloquent spokesman for his people, and a purveyor of good in the world.

--Candice Russell

DEATH AND LIFE IN HAITI

2009-05-17T20:30:00.003-04:00

May 17, 2009

Yesterday was the funeral in Haiti for the father of my good friend, Lange Rosner. The ceremonies attendant to all aspects of life, including death, are important to Haitians. They are closer to these rituals than many other cultures in the Western hemisphere and are stronger for them, in my opinion. The funeral procession, the burial, even the screaming and crying as the coffin is lowered into the ground are part of the plan, a recipe for grieving and what Americans speciously dub “closure.”

Last weekend was the ten-year anniversary of the death of my good friend, Dr. Carlos Jara. A psychiatrist and diplomat from Chile, he came to Haiti in the late 1980s and established a solid reputation as one of the island’s foremost art dealers. To his credit, he befriended many of the artists whose work he loved. Carlos accompanied renowned Saint Soleil painter Stivenson Magloire to a Port-au-Prince cemetery late one night and performed a ritual of his own making to relieve Magloire of what he thought was an evil spell put on him by his enemies. When Magloire’s mother, Saint Soleil painter Louisiane Saint Fleurant, lay sick and near death in a rural hospital, it was Carlos who brought her the medicine she needed to make a full recovery.

The loss of Carlos was not only a terrible blow to the art world but to his beloved wife, Emeraude Michel Jara, their sons Jorgen and Sergio and Yanne, with whom she was pregnant when Carlos suffered his fatal heart attack at age 54 on May 9, 1999. No one was better at finding and encouraging the great artists of Haiti. When we made a visit to Andre Pierre (also now deceased) in Croix-des-Missions, Carlos insisted we stop at a bakery in Petionville to get the artist a special cake, which was happily received. A wonderful host, a bon vivant and raconteur, Carlos was intelligent, funny and impeccable in the way he conducted business.

His own funeral involved three speakers besides the preacher at the church in Delmas -- his oldest son Carlitos, his pregnant wife Emeraude, and myself. A one-eyed cat walked in front of me as I took the stage, which other people mentioned to me at the graveside. There was a small orchestra of young people playing somber classical music and quiet sobbing. It was a beautiful ceremony, followed by a trek to the cemetery for the wealthy near Petionville. As the coffin was lowered into a deep hole and covered with wet cement, it was nearly silent but the air was electrically charged with grief. Carlos died way too soon and all too suddenly. No one was prepared for this tragedy.

In keeping with the Haitians’ reverence for passed-away ancestors and death rituals, death is part of the subject matter used by some of the country’s best artists. Look no further than Wilson Bigaud’s painting “Zombie Being Led from the Cemetery,” incorporating a widely-held myth that the dead can rise again. It was inspired by a similar painting originated by Hector Hyppolite, the grandfather of the current Haitian art renaissance launched in the 1940s. Just like the Mexicans, whose Day of the Dead corresponds with the Haitians’ Guede ceremonies around November 1, the Haitians understand that death is part of life, less to be feared than incorporated into existence.

--Candice Russell

Haitian Art Aficionados, Take Note

2009-03-15T21:08:00.000-04:00

March 15, 2009 -- Haitian Art Aficionados, Take Note
Twice a year, Slotin Folk Art Auction in Buford, Georgia conducts major on-site auctions of wonderful folk art, primarily done by U.S. artists. Stalwarts like the late Howard Finster, known for his Christian iconography and spiritual writing on his paintings and plywood figures, are featured in the upcoming March 28th auction. But this time, there are also a number of choice Haitian artworks, including paintings and superb Vodou flags, those hand-sewn sequined and beaded wonder works that carry so much of Haitian ancestral tradition as well as contemporary ceremonial weight. There is even a superb metal sculpture made from a recycled oil drum.
What does this mean for the cognoscenti, those in-the-know folks with a few dollars to spend on expanding their collections? Bargains, for the most part, if past Slotin Folk Art Auctions with Haitian art, including one with the holdings of film director Jonathan Demme, are any indication. This auction firm is different than most, in that there are no reserves on pieces. The low estimate may be $500 on a painting, but if it doesn’t get that high on the opening bid, the work could sell for $400 or $300 or even less. Obviously, this isn’t the optimal condition for sellers of artwork at the auction. On the other hand, it’s great for buyers who may get lucky.
Prefete Duffaut followers should take special note of a painting by the master of the fantasy landscape genre. Titled “Haitian Village” and measuring 29 inches by 24 inches, it is dated 1954. The painting is from an aerial perspective of a bay with sailboats, the rooftops of large buildings and the white towers of a seaside church. In excellent condition, the painting is estimated between $1,000 to $2,000, which seems under-priced considering the earliness of the work.
Gerard, also known as Gerard Fortune (though he only signs his first name on paintings), is represented by “Rooster,” an undated paint on board work measuring 25” by 25”. This charming primitive work shows a gigantic rooster with a rope around his neck, pulling a small cart in which ride two people. Extolled by the late scholar-author Selden Rodman as being one of the best primitive artists of his generation, Gerard is a prolific artist who has yet to gain the prominence that Rodman and others like myself thought he should attain. This beautifully balanced painting shows Gerard’s control of the subject. He shades his figures by putting them in between two trees with pink trunks. Amazingly, the estimate on this painting is $200 to $400. If it went for less, the buyer would be paying a price equal to what Gerard works go for in Port-au-Prince.
Bourmond Byron, another under-valued yet famous artist, has “Homage La Sirene” in the auction. Measuring 34” by 23,” this oil on board has a scratch in the lower left corner that an art conservationist could probably restore without difficulty. Byron pictures the mermaid in control of people who have anything to do with the sea in a small lake, with people standing on shore around her. It’s a serene masterpiece with an estimate of between $500 and $800.
If you like the paintings of Jasmin Joseph, who anthropomorphizes animals in his paintings, you may be the candidate to bid on Pierre Augustin’s “Rabbits Reading Little Red Book.” Estimated to have been painted in the 1960s, this sweet painting in oil on masonite measures almost 24 inches by almost 26 inches. The rabbits are perched on a rock in the forest for their reading session.
My personal favorite is an untitled painting with religious and voodoo icons by Gerard Paul, the under-sung painter who left Haiti many years ago to work as a hospital orderly in New York. What became of him I don’t know, which is why it’s a treat to see his paintings pop up now and then at auction. Measuring 44 inches by 34 inches including the frame, this superior work pictures Ogou Feraille or Saint Jacques le Majeur also known as the conquering hero on his white horse, the Virgin Mary holding a cross, and other Erzulie Danthor, the dark-skinned Virgin Mary holding her baby. Strong primary colors distinguish this painting, estimated at between $1,000 and $1,500.
Other painters featured in this auction are Leonel, Fernand Pierre, Charles Obas, Edouard Jean, Thermofils, and Louverture Poisson. Even if you don’t bid, the catalog is a keeper.
In the field of metal sculpture, look for Brierre’s “Lady Swan,” measuring 36 inches by 70 inches and estimated between $500 and $800. The unusual subject matter and burnished copper metal material make “Hog and Snake” by Liphete Lajeunesse worthy of consideration. It measures 71 inches by 34 inches. The estimate is between $500 and $800. The sassy fat pig holds its own as the snake hisses at its face.
Vodou flags, five total, are also included in the auction. None are identified by artist, but collectors like myself can figure out who did at least two. “Erzulie Dantor -- Heart with Knife Through It,” measuring 30 inches by 30 inches, bears the intials S.J., which stands for Sylva Joseph. The estimate is between $200 and $400. “Small Dambala,” measuring 17 inches by 20,” features two green snakes of Dambala and his consort Ayida Wedo, against a pink background. The Estimate is between $100 and $300. “Man with Peace Doves and Large Knife,” measuring 35 inches by 30 inches, stylistically looks like the work of Georges Valris. The estimate is between $300 and $500.
Full-color, descriptive auction catalogs are free to anyone who calls 1-770-532-1115. Shipping costs are extra and spelled out exactly next to the artwork’s description. Absentee and telephone bids are accepted, which is how I became the winning bidder on an outstanding iron cross with heart designs by Georges Liautaud more than a year ago. I paid a little more than I wanted but I got an outstanding piece at a more than fair price.
--Candice Russell
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Art And A Contracting World Economy

2009-03-01T09:25:00.001-05:00

February 28, 2009 - The State of Things

Every week I get requests from strangers to buy or evaluate their Haitian art. With a contraction of the world economy, people are eager to liquidate their assets, including paintings and other art objects from this wonderful island country. Since I am in a position of selling rather than buying right now, I am not in a position to purchase some pieces that would I might have snapped up immediately two years ago.

A Haitian man from Miami, Florida drove one county to the north to my home, without an appointment, to sell me six paintings in the back of his car. I was only interested in one, a typical landscape scene of a waterfall with white wading birds by J.R. Bresil. The painting looked authentic and the price was reasonable, but I had to pass.

Someone else found me through my website and approached me about some lovely sculptures by the famous Georges Laratte for ridiculously low prices. Again, I had to turn away.

What I do have in stock within my own personal collection is sufficient for my needs right now. As for the Haitian art I am trying to sell on my website, eighteen small paintings and twenty-eight ceramic tiles including some by renowned Haitian-born ceramic artist Klawdia Proia were added to www.haitianna.com since January 1st of this year. Within a few days, thirty-two new Vodou flags of all sizes and prices will also be available for sale at fair prices. They include a fabulous "Erzulie Danthor" by Wagler Vital priced at $700. The image is of a half-woman, half-symbol heart design wielding a sword. Done in his inimitable folky style, this flag has tremendous spirit and whimsy.

Also among the new Vodou flags is "Erzulie Freda with Double Blue Cloth Border" by the famous Clotaire Bazile, measuring forty inches by almost thirty-six inches. Decently priced at $800, though his works go for much more, this exceptionally beautiful flag portrays the loa of love in strong colors. A sampling of small treasures by Jean Baptiste Jean-Joseph, known for his use of luxurious materials, is also on the website very soon. "Mermaid in Yellow with Trumpet" by Maxon Scylla at $600 is reminiscent of the flags by the late Antoine Oleyant.
I hope you'll take a look and find an irresistibly desirable Haitian artwork to add to your home or office.

--Candice Russell

Andre Pierre Painting - At Auction

2009-01-31T12:20:00.000-05:00

January 31, 2009

What if you had the opportunity to buy a painting by a renowned Haitian master at a bargain price? Would you forego a mortgage or rent payment and borrow funds from Aunt Sally just to get the work in your personal collection? I understand the collecting urge because I am prisoner to it on many occasions. But if the price is out of reach, it's out of reach and practicality overtakes whim in helping to decide what to do. I'll have to pass but maybe someone reading this blog will act on the information. The auction is Sunday, February 1st -- tomorrow.

These thoughts were in my head this week when an official at Thomaston Place Auction Galleries in Thomaston, Maine emailed me with nine images, including a close-up of the artist's signature, of a magnificent painting by Andre Pierre. The untitled work on canvas, measuring thirty inches by thirty-nine and three-quarter inches, portrays a group of people watching a Vodou priestess or mambo creating a veve or line drawing in the earth. This forest scene also shows a man leading a bull into a circle for sacrifice. A metal cross is in a bonfire while a sack is tied to a tree.

In strong primary colors and a style rare to find, this painting by the late Andre Pierre dates from 1967. The low estimate is $2,000 and the high estimate is $3,000. But it could go for a much higher price than $3,000. Or it could go unnoticed by Haitian art collectors because the work is the sole Haitian piece in a person's collection of more than 300 items, ranging from advertising items and Native American beadwork to bronze sculptures.

The only problem with the Pierre painting is a small puncture to the canvas, though a savvy art restorer could repair it undetectably. Ideally, either a collector or a museum will snap up this rare opportunity to own a masterpiece for very little money. To learn more, visit the web site www.thomastonauction.com or telephone 1-207-354-8141. If you access the web site, look for the February 1st part of the auction and click on 2-D art and scroll down until you find it. If you're the fortunate buyer, let me know and I'll tell your story to other readers.

-- Candice Russell

Jean Camille Nasson (1961 - 2008)

2009-01-17T16:04:00.001-05:00

January 17, 2009

It is with regret and sadness that I report the death of the great Haitian sculptor Jean Camille Nasson (1961-2008), who died last month. In a country plagued by natural disasters like floods, rampant poverty and political uncertainty, lives are cut short by a multiplicity of factors. And collectors are left wounded by the loss.

One of my favorite Haitian art possessions is an angel-devil figure carved of dark wood by Nasson. Its wings are made of metal and its head is festooned with tiny nails around which are wound brassy-colored metal threads. The figure has horns. In front of him is a metal cross attached with nails. Instead of eyes, there are empty sockets. The work is gritty and raw, yet breathtakingly sophisticated. Nasson evoked the duality of good and bad within the same personage. An explanation about this intriguing work came from Haitian art dealer Reynald Lally, who was exhibiting the work of Nasson and other cutting-edge Haitian sculptors several years ago in Miami, Florida. He said that Nasson, as a child, had been molested by a Catholic priest. This sexual attack left him with conflicted feelings about the church, which obviously were manifest in my sculpture.

Lally, who lives in Haiti, was kind enough to write about Nasson in an email to me: "His work with sculpture began at the age of eight, when a Catholic priest showed him how to make religious sculptures. He became friends with Haitian contemporary artist Mario Benjamin who showed him art books.

"Nasson started doing figures carved out of wood. He added nails, metals and other found materials. He made devils and Virgins Marys with antennas. I asked him why he placed antennas on his figures and he answered, 'So they can send and receive messages.'

"His work can be found in museums around the world including Casas de Americas in Havana, Cuba, the Vatican collection in Italy and the Waterloo Center for the Arts in Waterloo, Iowa, among other places. The new stars of Haitian art from the Grand Rue -- Guyodo, Celeur and Eugene -- were highly influenced by Nasson. He always had a smile on his face. That is how I will remember him."

Nasson's remarkable sculptures were seen in the landmark Haitian sculpture exhibition "Lespri Endepandan: Exploring Haitian Sculpture" at Florida International University's main museum in Miami, Florida several years ago, Writing for City Link newspaper at the time, I called these mixed media figures fetishistic and born of influences from Christianity and Vodou. Nasson's sculptures held their own amidst works by Georges Liautaud, Lionel St. Eloi, Pierrot Barra and Edouard Duval-Carrie, among many others. Nasson was a titan and a true original in the ever-evolving Haitian art scene.

--Candice Russell

Annual Haitian Art Holiday Sale

2008-12-19T07:55:00.000-05:00

December 18, 2008

My annual Haitian art holiday sale continues for its fourth and final weekend come Saturday and Sunday. For information and directions to my home, telephone 954/792-9887. Thank you to everyone who came, enjoyed the art work and sipped champagne. Among the avid buyers and collectors this year are Linda Stabile, Grace Barnes, and Marguerite and George Bolge, who is the executive director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art. George is contemplating the purchase of a black-and-white painting by Saint Soleil master Levoy Exil. This rare painting from my personal collection was purchase more than twenty years ago from the Port-au-Prince gallery of the late Issa el-Saieh. Gustavo Ponzoa, the noted pianist and fanatical collector, made an appearance last weekend with photos of the newest Prefete Duffaut painting he just purchased. A good time was had by all.

Despite the global economic woes, Haitian art remains a good investment. The aesthetics of these great paintings, Vodou flags, and metal sculptures are beyond the reach of any economic recession. Their value holds. Speaking of Vodou flags, I acquired some real beauties from friend and gallery dealer Axelle Liautaud, who came this month from Haiti for a short visit. Soon they will appear on my web site, so please look for them. The prices of Clotaire Bazile Vodou flags were recently lowered in time for holiday gift-giving. These wallet-friendly beauties are done by a true genius of the sacred textile medium.

Haitian art is the cover subject of the new January, 2009 issue of "Holistic Health Magazine," for which I serve as editor-in-chief and main writer. Featured on the cover is the exquisitely beautiful painting "Peace Dove" by Eric Jean-Louis, a Haitian artist who currently resides in Miami, Florida. His transcendent vision makes this painting very special. As he explains it to me, the inspiration for the work came from the late Haitian art dealer Dr. Carlos Jara, who visited Jean-Louis' studio in Haiti and suggested he create the image of a child's hands releasing a white dove in the forest. Jean-Louis complied with the suggestion and created this work, suitable for a UNICEF greeting card, posters, or Christmas cards.

Better things are coming for Haiti in the new year. More art will soon appear on my web site.
Thank you for reading this.

--Candice Russell

Changing Art Market Bodes Well for Haitian Art Buyers

2008-04-10T06:44:00.000-04:00

April 8, 2008

A long article in the Miami Herald's business section on April 7th, 2008 is headlined "Art Enters Its Black Period." Writer Brett Sokol discusses the shifts in the market for high-end American art and cites the example of commercial mortgage broker Lang Baumgarten trying to cash in on the current boom preceding a predictable bust. This Miamian is putting a portrait of fashion designer Zac Posen by artist Alex Katz up for bid at Christie's auction house for between $200,000 and $300,000. He bought the painting for $90,000 four years ago and feels it is time to cash in before prices plunge as the U.S. copes with a period of unfortunate economic recession.

Art as investment is always a tricky business. As in any collectible field, it is wisest to buy what you love, thus shielding the monetary investment you have made by the adoration you have for the object, regardless of market conditions. Prices usually do come back and occasionally increase over time.

Nowhere is this truer than with Haitian art. Prices for old master painters continue to increase at a value higher than the average stock because once someone like Andre Pierre dies, there is a finite number of works available forever forward into time. It is absolutely essential that a collector deals with a reputable dealer capable of providing a provenace for a work of art. Speculators who buy what they think is an Andre Pierre painting, because the thrift store owner downtown told them so, are in for trouble as fakes of Pierre and other masters enter the market.

**********************

The recent death of artist Frantz Zephirin, Jr. is an example of a promising young light of the new generation not able to reach his full potential. He could have reached the heights of his well-known father Frantz Zephirin. The younger artist's fanciful imagery and respect for Haitian history could have carried him into museums, catalogs and books on Haitian art. But Zephirin, Jr., who made paintings of revolutionary heroes on horseback, swimming mermaids, and Vodou queens in mid-ceremony, succumbed to an unknown disease while either eighteen or nineteen years old. One person who believed in his talent was Haitian gallery dealer Axelle Liautaud, who oversaw and funded the thin and sickly artist's stay in a Port-au-Prince hospital. She championed his genius and sold the handfuls of paintings he produced in a few short years.

-- Candice Russell

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Too Many People Are Selling Bad Haitian Art.

2008-02-05T05:59:00.000-05:00

February 5, 2008

What the new year bodes for Haitian art is anyone's guess. But from the expert opinion of two people in Haiti, both of them in the art business, the outlook isn't good. To protect their identities, I won't reveal their names because their communication was personal.

Each person bemoaned to me the abundance of fakes in the marketplace. Even more sad is the knowing collaboration of U.S. dealers in this deception, which dilutes the value of the originals. Tiga, the renowned painter, died a little more than a year ago and is already being copied in Haiti and sold to unsuspecting buyers. Another problem is the absence of a strong tourist base going to Haiti with the purpose of buying art. A new generation of collectors needs to start travelling to the island to buoy up the market. But the persistence of political instability and kidnappings scare off even the most intrepid travellers, myself included.

Too many people are selling bad Haitian art, as seen commonly in neighboring Dominican Republic and as sold on Ebay, unfortunately. Haitians don't support their own artistic output is another complaint voiced by my insider. As a result of all these things, the prices for Haitian art has gone down. A Hector Hyppolite which used to sell for $40,000 now goes for $25,000. One respected dealer said he actually lost money for participating in the International Caribbean Art Fair held in New York City in November.

While painting is experiencing a low point in Haiti, sculptors and Vodou flag makers are on a wonderful high, creating works of surpassing creativity according to one Haitian art dealer. There are still buyers for Haitian art in Haiti, largely from the well-paid expatriate community looking for souvenirs to take back home after their service in Haiti.

Just as in the floundering real estate market in the U.S., there are bargains to be had in Haitian art. So in spite of all this negative reportage, the long-term outlook for Haitian art remains positive, if not radiant. Discoveries will be made of new and original artists doing things never seen before in Haitian art. Savvy collectors will start spending now in anticipation that their wise choices in art will increase in value eventually. The worth of the art is less monetary than intrinsic within its aesthetic parameters and the reputations of the artists. If an Andre Pierre painting is under-valued now, think what a work by the foremost artist painting the loa of the Vodou pantheon might be worth in 2018 or beyond?

The time to buy for sharp-eyed collectors on a budget is now. My advice is to buy in multiples and negotiate a lower price with a reputable dealer. Consider the source before making a purchase, so as to authenticate the originality of your artwork. Haitian art is indisputably the best art in the world and if the world's a little slow in recognizing this fact, you stand to be on the cutting edge of a future trend. Buy now and enjoy Haitian art.

--Candice Russell

Don't Miss Out on My Annual Haitian Art Sale!

2007-12-15T08:29:00.000-05:00

December 16, 2007

Today begins the last weekend of the 2007 Holiday Haitian Art Sale at my home in Plantation, Florida. Those unable to attend can request a free photo packet of items customized to your taste. Those coming will enjoy seeing items not seen in previous weekends because Mr. Lange Rosner in Haiti, my friend and buyer, just sent me a shipment of terrific artwork -- small paintings perfect for gift-giving, whimsical painted metal sculptures spelling out the words "joy" and "Noel," wonderful unpainted metal sculptures including a small nine-inch circle of a tree with little birds in it by David Joseph, and exquisite Vodou flags, including a miniature treasure made exclusively from beads of a veve (design drawn on floor of Vodou temple prior to a ceremony) by Jean Baptiste Jean Joseph. There are other well-priced (low) Vodou flags including a cheerful "La Sirene," a "Carrefour" veve, and a fabulous head of a bull on green satin. The bull is a symbol of fortitude and determination, perfect for anyone trying to surmount obstacles in their life.

Speaking of Jean Baptiste Jean Joseph, I met a new friend this week when Dominique Carvonis of Haiti and Pembroke Pines, Florida visited my home this week. She owns a dental practice in Port-au-Prince and goes back and forth to Haiti all the time. Carvonis brought over a tempting selection of Joseph Vodou flags, each more lovely than the last. After purchasing two for my personal collection, I took two small ones on consignment including a "Bossou" or bull, a very masculine-looking strong flag.

Besides being newly stocked for the show, the Children of Haiti Enhancement Foundation will benefit from weekend sales. Certain items each day will be put up for a silent auction, which is exciting. Good food, champagne, friends and fellowship besides surpassingly wonderful art -- what could be better? I hope you can join us.

--Candice Russell

Hurry! Only 2 Week-ends Left.

2007-12-06T21:26:00.000-05:00

December 6, 2007

The first two weekends of my annual in-home Haitian art sale have brought out loyal customers and friends who have collected the paintings of masters and unknowns with equal fervor. Thank you to all who have supported this wonderful aesthetic revolution over the years, including Dr. Donna Goldstein of Hollywood, Florida, a psychologist, global traveller, and specialist in cultural diversity issues. Also in attendance were documentary filmmaker Grace Barnes and Paula Harper, a University of Miami art professor and noted art critic. Each woman has superb taste in art and knows exactly what she wants to add to her personal collection.

George Bolge, director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Boca Raton, Florida, and his wife Marguerite purchased a cheerful painting of figures in kind of a Saint Soleil style by Lionel Elie, an artist I met several years ago outside the Oloffson Hotel in Port-au-Prince. I bought the painting directly from Elie, who says he sells his work through the Cavin-Morris Gallery in New York City.

Laurie Vaughn, an abstract expressionist painter from Plantation, Florida, and her boyfriend Derrick Smith, a Miami architect, spent several hours with other guests, drinking Haiti's version of eggnog -- the delicious alcoholic Christmas brew called "cremas" -- and discussing the art scene. It's now the week of Art Basel Miami Beach, the largest U.S. art fair, and Vaughn is going to participate in an adjunct space in the design district and, we hope, sell out all of her paintings.

Friends Margareth and Reynolds Rolles, who have a number of superior paintings by Raoul Gilles for sale during the show, also came over. Through their auspices, a number of Haitian artists who live in the U.S. visited as well including Guy Floury, Ernst Louis-Jacques, and H. Versaint, who is the son of famed stone sculptor Georges Laratte found in many Haitian art books. Versaint brought a small folder of photos of his own work, highly reminiscent of his father, in marble and stone. These strong figurative works referenced such favorite themes of his as maternity.

Speaking to Mr. Lange Rosner in Haiti, my cherished friend who buys artwork for me and ships it via Federal Express, I learned this week that my favorite gallery to buy from for the purposes of re-sale closed in the Delmas district of Port-au-Prince. The wonderful Pierre-Pierre Gallery is gone! What a shock, considering it was the visitor to Haiti's mecca. Many are the times I can recall walking through the dusty piles of metal sculptures and wood figurines in the dusty upstairs space, accompanied by a very tall woman with a big smile who worked at the gallery. When I cringed away from a spider one time, she said spiders were good luck and laughed at my fright. Remarkable art of all kinds was found in the space, including Vodou flags and one of my favorite paintings by the late Saint Soleil master Dieuseul Paul, who forgot to sign it (friend Dr. Carlos Jara ran into the artist on the street months later, encouraged him to visit and got him to sign the canvas!).

Mr. Rosner is sending a package this week for arrival early next week, which is good news for visitors to the sale on December 15th and 16th, which is a benefit for the Children of Haiti Enhancement Foundation. I'll have many new things just purchased in Haiti, including gorgeous Vodou flags of ceremonial import and metal sculptures, both painted and unpainted.

This coming weekend, December 8th and 9th from 12 noon to 6 p.m. on both days, the focus is on sales and appraisals. Each day at 4 p.m. visitors are invited to bring artwork or a photo and we'll research in catalogs and my extensive library of Haitian art books what the value of the art is. This should be fun. It's certainly something different I've never done before, though I have privately appraised personal collections. Maybe I'll see you at the sale!

--Candice Russell

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Only 3 Weeks Left in Annual Sale!!

2007-12-02T09:01:00.000-05:00

November 30, 2007

Only 3 weeks remaining in Candice Russell's Annual Haitian Art Sale. Email Candice for information and directions: candice@haitianna.com . New arrivals from Haiti currently being displayed.

My Annual In-Home Art Sale

2007-11-23T11:46:00.000-05:00

November 23, 2007

This weekend begins my annual in-home sale of Haitian art, which extends for three additional weekends after that, ending on Sunday,December 16th. All days the show is on from 12 noon to 6 p.m. Anyone interested in Haitian art is invited, so please contact me for driving directions or to be mailed a postcard.

In the nineteenth year of sales like this in my west Broward County home in South Florida, I am trying to do things a bit differently this time. During the first weekend, prices on everything are discounted 15per cent. This is a direct appeal to bargain hunters and holiday gift shoppers with an eye for the unusual and unique. Original Haitian art appeals to collectors and casual buyers who might not know much about the subject. With prices ranging from $15 up to $10,000, the artworks include paintings, Vodou flags, wood sculptures, mixed media sculptures by the great Lionel Saint Eloi, metal sculptures to Tomas Petit (who does wonderful crosses like those found in the cemetery in Croix-des-Bouquets, and catalogs of museum exhibitions devoted to Haitian art, which cannot be found in bookstores or even the museums where the shows were held because they're out of print.

The second weekend of the show, December 1st and 2nd, I will lecture about Haitian art at 3 p.m. on both days, bringing out items from my personal collection, many of which haven't been exhibited before. I'll touch briefly upon Haitian history with an emphasis on the significance of Vodou as expressed visually by artists of surpassing genius.

The third weekend of the show, Saturday December 8th and Sunday December 9th, is the time to come to bring your Haitian art for an appraisal. If it's too big or cumbersome to load and carry in your car, bring a photo and we'll do on-the-spot research in catalogs and look up obscure names. Here's a chance for you to know what you have and what you treasure -- a masterpiece or a piece of minimal value?

The Children of Haiti Enhancement Foundation, a non-profit charity based in Miami under the leadership of Haitian-American Elsie Craig,is the focus of the fourth and final weekend of the sale on Saturday,December 15th and Sunday, December 16th. Special items not put out other weekends will be available for purchase at modest starting prices in a silent auction, with most or all of the proceeds going to this outstanding organization that supplies school children in Haiti with the tools they need in school to be successful, along with meals.Many of these children are in remote mountain villages, which Craig has visited. One place took her all day to reach on foot! Large photos of the children will be on display.

If you can't make this superior sale, please contact me for a free photo packet customized to your needs. Most of my artwork won't make it on the web site due to size limitations for shipping and other considerations. My friend, Mr. Lange Rosner in Haiti, is buying items for me as this is being written. Future shipments from Haiti will bring more wonderful artworks. What a way to celebrate the holiday season!

--Candice Russell

Unbelievable Bargains on Haitian Art

2007-11-20T16:23:00.000-05:00

November 20, 2007

Unbelievable bargains on Haitian art were part of the early November event in Georgia largely devoted to the personal collection of American filmmaker Jonathan Demme. He put up for bid a number of precious holdings at the Slotin Folk Art Auction in Buford, Georgia on November 10th, with the result that those in the bidding hall or bidding by telephone had an opportunity to pick up some very fine artworks by Haitian masters for less than their going value on multiple web sites.

Case in point: the magnificent color cover of the catalog is Pauleus Vital's exceptional painting "Judgement Day," measuring 26 inches by31 inches. It went for a laughably low $8,000 -- its low estimate.Wilson Bigaud's "Marriage at Cana" (#336 in the catalog), measuring 41inches by 32 inches, sold for an amazingly modest $1,400. Wonderful sculptures in metal by the inventor of the medium, Georges Liautaud,ranged from $600 to $2,000 -- again way off the mark at galleries and web sites.

If you were a collector, you won out. Gustavo Ponzoa of Miramar,Florida was our man on the scene. He was amazed at what he calls the"disproportionate" prices between items of the same size and quality by the same artist -- some going for under the value, some others going for much more than the value. All of the Haitian pieces, in his opinion, were "absolutely under-bid." For the scandalously good price of $300, Ponzoa walked away with a 24-inch by 24-inch painting called"Multiple Village Figures" (#586 in the catalog) for just $300. He also got the painting "Wolf and Sheep" (#748 in the catalog) for a mere $200. "It was like a surprise box -- you never knew what you were getting," says Ponzoa in his description of the prices pieces brought.

Even so, he liked the experience. "It was a lot of fun and went very quickly," says Ponzoa, who also won on his bids for a small folk art"Lion" painting by American artist Malcah Zeldis for a bargain $125.

But how can one explain a Gerard "Nativity" painting going for $250?This makes no sense. Selden Rodman, the late author and expert on Haitian art, must be turning over in his grave, since he so championed Gerard as one of the great naive painters. Which he still is! I don't know if Peters Stephane is any relation to Micius Stephane, but this artist's "Mother and Kids" painting, measuring ten inches by twelve inches, went for a criminal $25 -- that's right, $25! The estimate for this superb little work was between $800 to $1,200.

Also inexplicable were the prices brought by Vodou items, including flags by unnamed artists ranging from "Rice" for $250 to $2,000 for"Two Blue Snakes." Doll shrines by the lauded Pierrot Barra, some more aesthetically pleasing than others, ranged from $275 to $600 -- again under-priced, especially if you asked Donald Cosentino, the University of California at Los Angeles professor who wrote a book about works by Barra and his wife Marie Cassise.

What to make of this auction and these prices? It's only a true bellwether of the market if a large number of Haitian art collectors and museum curators were aware of the auction and participating in it.Ponzoa reports there were only a few in the hall with him during the auction.

--Candice Russell

Major Haitian Art Event

2007-11-09T06:25:00.000-05:00

November 8, 2007

A major Haitian art event is taking place on Saturday, November 10that Historic Buford Hall in Buford, Georgia, just outside Atlanta. The Slotin Folk Art Auction for that particular day is heavily laden with items in American folk art and Haitian masterpieces from the personal collection of filmmaker and Haitian human rights defender Jonathan Demme. On the cover of the full-color catalog is a stellar painting featured in the show co-curated by myself and Axelle Liautaud in 2006at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, Florida -- "Judgement Day"(1983) by Pauleus Vital. This incredible work features zombies bursting out of multi-colored coffins in a cemetery and making their way up twin staircases with very different ends, as one group appears to march toward heaven and the others to hell It is estimated to bring in between $8,000 to $12,000.

But as with all items at Slotin Folk Art Auctions, there is no reserve. So if a bidder gets lucky, he or she may walk away with a highly valued artwork for less than the estimate. Also featured in the auction are two lovely Wilson Bigaud paintings including "Lady in the Rose Garden" (1981), estimated at between $1,000 and $2,000 and"Marriage at Cana" (c. 1981), with an estimate of $2,000 to $4,000.Both prices seem low.

A very unusual "Papa Zaka" painting by the underrated Bourmond Byron, a painting called "Twa Zonbi" by Abel Michel inspired by the original painting by Hector Hyppolite of zombies being led from a cemetery, a charming Alexandre Gregoire "In the Garden" and "Nativity" by Gerard make this auction one to watch, if only to gauge the strength of the market in Haitian art. Of course, it all depends on how many Haitian art lovers know about the auction and decide to participate as bidders, either in person or by telephone.

Demme put up some rarities on the auction block, too, including"Monument" (c. 1963) by Florence Martinez and the exceptionally beautiful "Dambala Wedo" in the old-school palette by Andre Pierre.Under-priced works in iron and metal by the pioneer who started this genre of sculptures, Georges Liautaud, and his successor Serge Jolimeau are also up for bid. From crosses both embellished and plain,figurative pieces like mermaids and a creature dubbed "Metamorphosis,"and paintings by Etienne Chavannes, one of Demme's favorite artists,this auction is worth checking out, even after the fact to see what prices actually materialized once the hammer came down.

Other notable paintings by Jerome Polycarpe, Gerard Paul, Roi David Annissey, Ulrick Jean, G. Leveque, and Fernand Pierre are included inthe offerings. Lesser known artists are included in Demme's collectionas well. He has a remarkable eye that applies to Vodou flags, with tasty representations of "Mermaid," "Kok Lavalas," and "Tambou Verite." Mixed media sculptures by Pierrot Barra using doll heads are part of this eclectic mix. The auction should be fun and the results worth careful contemplation.

-- Candice Russell

International Caribbean Art Fair - New York City

2007-10-30T13:47:00.000-04:00

October 29, 2007

For people in the New York City area or visiting there this week, it might be worthwhile to visit the International Caribbean Art Fair held from November 1st to 4th at the Puck Building, 295 Lafayette Street in New York City. Forty artists and/or gallery owners from all over the Caribbean will be represented at the art fair, including people from Aruba, Jamaica and Cuba. But of course we're most interested in the art from Haiti, with at least two galleries coming directly from the island's capital of Port-au-Prince -- Galerie Marassa and Galerie Bourbon-Lally, owned by Christiane and Reynald Lally, who have superb taste as well as a button on the most cutting-edge, contemporary art.

With a lecture and workshop component at the art fair, the event promises to educate its visitors, whether they're collectors, browsers, academics or museum curators. As of Monday afternoon, announcement of details about lectures and workshops hadn't been announced. Guided art tours are offered daily for $25, a price that includes show admission.

This event is sponsored by the Haitian Art Education and Appraisal Society, a non-profit, professional organization that exists to establish appraisal standards for Haitian artists and to advance the arts through education, archiving, advocacy and scholarship. To learn more about the art fair, telephone the toll free number 1-877-319-6478 or 301/637-4934 or 301/651-6919. If you attend the event and want to let me know how it was, please email me at: candice@haitianna.com.

--Candice Russell

A New Newsletter

2007-10-19T12:35:00.000-04:00

October 19, 2007

It is with great pleasure that I am announcing the birth of a new publication of interest to Haitian art collectors, museum curators and scholars: a quarterly newsletter titled "Haitian Art Views." The publishers are Reynolds Rolles, a veteran collector, photographer, and graphic designer, and Emile Viard, an author and Haitian art dealer -- both hail from Haiti. I am the editor.

Printed on heavy stock paper in full color for the photos, the first issue includes a "Tribute to Tiga" (1935 - 2006), the innovative artist and teacher who spearheaded the start of the Saint Soleil movement of Haitian avant-garde art. It was his careful tutelage that led Prospere Pierre Louis, Levoy Exil, Denis Smith, Dieuseul Paul and Louisiane Saint Fleurant to work in the same meticulous style of small dabs or dots of paint and philosophical reverence for the cosmos, women, and peace. Each artist developed his or her own particular way of painting and typical symbolism. Tiga's own technique of working called "soleil brulee" or "burnt sun" involved a mixture of inks, acrylic and acids lending his canvases a raw, primal feeling.

An interview with Carole Cleaver, the widow of author Selden Rodman, is also found in the "Collector's Corner" of "Haitian Art Views." She talks about the first piece of Haitian art she bought, when and why she began collecting, and her adventures along the way. She is the co-author with her late husband of the book "Spirits of the Night: The Vaudun Gods of Haiti" in addition to numerous newspaper and magazine articles about Haiti. A key portion of the interview is devoted to what she plans to do with her massive collection. Others can take their cues from her experience.

This season's "Artist Interview" is with Arijac, a contemporary painter known for his portraits and landscapes. Now a resident of North Miami, Florida, the artist reflects on his output, sources of inspiration, method of working, and hoped-for legacy.

A section for classified ads will allow collectors and others to communicate their wish to buy, sell or trade Haitian art and related items. Rolles, Viard and myself are hopeful that "Haitian Art Views" will prompt letter-writing on the part of readers who agree with or object to the opinions stated in the pages of our newsletter. We hope it will serve as a place for intelligent dialogue and debate among well-informed people. We are also open to suggestion in terms of what our readers want to see in future issues. It's an exciting time for us and we hope other people agree, so please pass on the information about "Haitian Art Views" to interested parties.

The first issue is out and available for free to anyone who asks, so please email me at both LuLuchat@aol.com and copy the email to LuLugatos@gmail.com. Yearly subscriptions, beginning with the January, 2008 issue, are $20.

Our first-ever full-color wall calendar is soon coming off the presses. It features people and places in Haiti from a variety of photographers including Rolles and myself. The price is $20. Please email me for more information.

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New Generation of Haitian Artists

2007-03-27T10:04:00.000-04:00

March 25, 2007

The Saint Soleil movement, dubbed by the late author and scholar Selden Rodman "the avant-garde of Haitian popular art," is proud to unveil the works of the younger generation. Levoy Exil and Denis Smith, the only two living originators of this art movement dealing with the same iconography, have good reason to nurture the talents of young men and women. By encouraging new artists working in the Saint Soleil style, the popularity of Saint Soleil is sustained.

In a recent visit in early March to South Florida, Levoy Exil brought treasures from his own hands, as well as paintings by artists heretofore unseen in the United States. Marie Danielle Exil is the daughter of Levoy Exil. A woman in her thirties, she paints in a remarkably similar style to her father, where not a scintilla of available canvas is untouched by a shape, a dot or a line. She is also a strong colorist with a palette entirely different from her famous father. Her lines are more sensual and organic. I was lucky to purchase four of her paintings -- one for myself and three others of smaller size to put up for sale (watch my website in the coming weeks).

Marie Danielle Exil uses felicitous combinations of colors -- varying shades of pink, purple, turquoise and yellow. Her figures are feminine with upturned mouths and thick curling eyelashes. Collectively, these figures seem amused at the cosmos as they float in a sea of dreamy half-circles and cradle creatures of unknown origin. With undeniable charm and a hand all her own, this new Exil has already caught fire in Italy and France, where her father exhibited her paintings to great acclaim. I'm very excited to have these artworks and look forward to buying more.

Onel, a young man, is the other new artist introduced by Levoy Exil on his recent trip. Not only paint but collage is incorporated into Onel's canvases -- bits of cloth, magazine photos of 1950s pin-up girls, and even Coca-Cola bottle caps! Inventive in the extreme, Onel's spirited artwork is completely original in Haitian art. He's also selling more expensive pieces than Marie Danielle Exil. My friends Margareth and Reynolds Rolles purchased the best painting by Onel featuring a large cross and multiple adornments. It's a masterpiece worthy of a museum exhibition.

With the deterioration of the art gallery system in Haiti, due in part to the deaths of major dealers like Dr. Carlos Jara and Issa el-Saieh, artists are left more and more on their own to get their artwork to a larger world marketplace than Port-au-Prince. Collectors in the U.S., Canada, Europe and more places are eager to see what remarkable output is being created in Haiti right now. I hope to bring you more information and new original art in the coming months. Stay tuned.

--Candice Russell

A New Year with New Hope

2007-01-01T20:58:00.000-05:00

January 1, 2007

A New Year with New Hope

On this gloriously sunny and warm sub-tropical South Florida day, one cannot help but be hopeful for Haiti and the enduring talent of its fine artists. Though they face incredible hardships in a country of great political instability and scant infrastructure, the artists continue to create against the odds. They are compelled to exercise their creativity in new and exciting ways.

The newest "medium" within Haitian art is the recycling of rubber tires into wonderful mortal creatures. They are magnificent silhouette figures with facial features -- eyes, nose and mouth -- created from the negative space of cutting out the rubber. In many ways, these odd creatures convey a ghostly or otherworldly appearance perhaps related to Haitian Vodou, the dominant religion. What is obvious is how these rubber entities resemble the cutouts from another recycled material, flattened oil drums made of metal, by the late Georges Liautaud. He often employed spirits of Vodou including Baron Samedi with his top hat and bare feet. Discovered by the artist and art dealer Axelle Liautaud, the artists making use of this new form are channeling the cartoon character Caspar as much as the roots of their own religious culture. I own three, all bought from Axelle, and plan to group them on a wall. Slightly amoebic as well with their delightfully misshapen bodies, these figures connote the unseen world of Vodou spirits who work their way in the lives of all Haitians.

Haitian art never stops. It just transforms and keeps going. Savvy collectors pay attention to these revelations of talent. Let's hope that fate is kind to Haiti this year -- less violence, more order, more peace -- and that there is a wider global appreciation of the art produced by the island's legion of remarkable artists.

-- Candice Russell

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Haitian Art Loses a Master

2006-12-18T12:20:00.000-05:00

“Haitian Art Loses a Master” -- December 17, 2006

A titan of Haitian art has passed away. Haitian-born artist and educator Jean Claude Garoute, known to the art world as “Tiga,” died on Thursday of liver cancer in a Fort Lauderdale hospice. Before his death at age 71, four days after his birthday, Tiga hosted a steady stream of visitors to his bedside, including artists like Patrick Gerald Wah who traveled from New York to see him. A televised tribute to Tiga aired on New York television last weekend and was seen by the ailing Tiga, whose mind remained sharp until the end even though his body was ravaged by disease.

Another visitor was Levoy Exil, a painter in the Saint Soleil movement, known as the avant-garde of Haitian popular art. This seminal movement was started by Tiga in 1972 with five core artists including Exil, Prospere Pierre Louis, Louisiane Saint Fleurant, Dieuseul Paul, and Denis Smith in Soisson la Montagne. Only Exil and Smith are still alive. Saint Soleil paintings are characterized by explosive color, semi-abstract figures, doves as symbols of peace, and women as the source of creation. Connected to the dominant Haitian religion of Vodou, Saint Soleil also connects to a larger sense of sacredness, according to the writing of Tiga, who based it on four key words -- dream, possession, creation and madness..

In visiting from his Thomasaint, Haiti home, Exil expressed gratefulness to Tiga for giving him the freedom and education that changed his whole life and allowed him to raise fourteen children.
“My relationship with Tiga is very spiritual,” Exil said after visiting him in the hospice. “He gave me three brushes and told me to do anything I felt like doing. President (Rene) Preval has great regard for Tiga and inquired after his health. He sees him as an icon or master of Haitian art.”

Exil explains that when he spoke to Tiga, “There is such electricity in the communication. Because of his illness, his body was practically gone but his mind keeps him so strong. If not for that, he would have been gone already. Tiga says that the moon receives the soul of a person and the sun burns the body to cleanse it so it can come back to life.”

Making peace with the fact of his impending death, Tiga had no fear about it, according to Exil. He merely saw death as a transformation of his energy and a continuation of his soul in another form. Those who knew and loved him are more prone to celebrate his life rather than mourn his passing.

Carnival in Haiti next February will be dedicated to Tiga and the Saint Soleil movement. Exil and Smith are working on the floats for the parades in Port-au-Prince and Jacmel, as well as their costumes. Tiga’s daughter Pascal Garoute will lead the parade. This Carnival plans to be one of the most spectacular celebrations in recent years.

Saint Soleil came along at the right time, according to Selden Rodman in the book “Where Art is Joy: The First Forty Years of Haitian Art.” The art market had become commercialized and painters felt more comfortable copying other people’s masterpieces than creating original works of their own. In 1996 Tiga wrote that Saint Soleil’s “primary purpose was the rehabilitation of art and the liberation of the human spirit through media corresponding to all senses: clay, drums, colors, voice, stone, ink, etc.”

French writer Andre Malraux became impressed with the Saint Soleil painters during a 1976 visit to Haiti and wrote in the book “L’Intemporel” about the movement as “the most striking and only controllable experiment in the magic world of painting in our century.”

Haitian art collector Reynolds Rolles of Plantation, who is also a fine art photographer, said, “Tiga could see your potential and give you the tools to develop them. He was honest, friendly and trustworthy. His best quality was his personality. Not only was he a great artist. His Saint Soleil movement put Haitian art on the map internationally and made art lovers see differently things they never saw before.”

Tiga’s art was featured in a benefit for the A.C.T.I.O.N. Foundation, a Broward-based non-profit organization promoting Creole art and culture, several years ago in the courtyard of the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale. Eric Boucicaut, the foundation’s president and an art collector, said, “The contribution of Tiga is immense not only at the level of visual art but at the level of culture. He had a theory of artistic rotation which entailed the use of many different media almost simultaneously. It worked with adults as well as young children and the mentally challenged who were his students.

“Tiga was a singer, philosopher, poet, researcher and fantastic sculptor as well as the creator of Saint Soleil, one of the most important movements in Haitian art. This is a major loss for Haiti. ”

Susan Karten, an American clothing designer and resident of Boca Raton, studied art with Tiga years ago when she lived in Haiti. She and her late husband Morton Karten had a business there (she still does) and lived in Haiti for thirty years. “He was very intense in a quiet way,” she says. “Tiga’s intensity made me create. He only let us use three colors -- red, yellow and blue -- because he said from those you can make anything.”

The only local museum show in the tri-county South Florida area devoted exclusively to the Saint Soleil artists was held at the Center of Contemporary Art (now the Museum of Contemporary Art) in North Miami, Florida in the early 1990s. Exil and Saint Fleurant came from Haiti for the show’s opening, then jointly created a mural commemorating this special event in an all-day event. Artist Philippe Dodard also participated in the painting. It was at this mural-painting that I purchased works on paper in black-and-white by both Saint Fleurant and Prospere Pierre Louis, along with a notebook of oversized pen-and-ink drawings by Exil.

Funeral arrangements for Tiga are pending in Haiti. He told Exil that he wanted to be cremated, to return to the fire.

-- Candice Russell

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Last Weekend of Phenomenal Haitian Art Sale

2006-12-14T14:51:00.000-05:00

"Last Weekend of Phenomenal Haitian Art Sale"

This is the last weekend of my annual 2006 Haitian Art Sale at my home in Plantation, which is located in western Broward County. Both Saturday and Sunday from 12 noon to 6 p.m. is the time to come and enjoy fantastic craft items ridiculously low-priced, including a painted metal palm tree leaf plate (perfect for croissants or mangos), a smiling sun face that would look great on a kitchen wall, and a snazzy lizard to perk up a child's room.

Master painters abound in this show including Prospere Pierre Louis, Andre Pierre, Pierre Joseph Valcin, Stivenson Magloire, Etienne Chavannes, Gelin Buteau, Levoy Exil, Louisiane Saint Fleurant, Amerlin Delinois, Gerard Valcin, Georges Liautaud, and many more. Gorgeous Vodou flags including works by geniuses and pioneers of the medium like Clotaire Bazile, creating medium-size treasures priced at less than $350, and the always-creative Georges Valris, who made a Marassa of arms-linked females that is to die for, are also part of this year's mix. It's quite a show!

Guests this year have included author-scholar Paula Harper, who is a University of Miami art professor, gallery owner Berenice Steinbaum of the Berenice Steinbaum Gallery in Miami's Design District, artists Leigh Walker and Nancy Edelstein, photographer Reynolds Rolles and his wife Margareth, and George Bolge, executive director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art and his wife Marguerite, among many others. Some of the wonderful Haitian art items that were purchased this year include a museum-quality Vodou flag of a mermaid by Mireille Delice, the cousin of Myrlande Constant, miniature painted metal horses (all gone by second weekend), hand-painted tiles with Vodou symbolism, a mixed-media sculpture of an angel by Lionel Saint Eloi, and a fantastic painting by Phelix Brochette, whose style is like Colombian artist Fernando Botero in that he paints people of extra poundage.

Who knows who will come and what will be sold this weekend? If you're in the South Florida region, please stop by and have a glass of champagne as you enjoy the sale in a comfortable home setting.

--Candice Russell

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Haitian Art Thriving in South Florida

2006-12-05T11:28:00.000-05:00

December 4, 2006

"Haitian Art Thriving in South Florida"

By Candice Russell

Last weekend was weekend number two of a four-weekend Haitian art extravaganza, a show and sale at my home in western Broward County. And what a spectacular weekend it was.

The 2006 Holiday sale of wonderful paintings includes work by the Saint Soleil masters like Prospere Pierre Louis and Louisiane Saint Fleurant, Etienne Chavannes, Wagler Vital, landscape genius Bresil, Pierre-Joseph Valcin, the late great Stivenson Magloire, and many other artists of renown. Vodou flag luminaries including Clotaire Bazile and Georges Valris are also represented with glittering examples of their exquisite workmanship and stunning designs. This year brought new items from Haiti, courtesy of my dear friend Lange Rosner, who finds art for me and sends it to me. Superb examples in unpainted metal include delicate little trees with birds perched in the branches -- something I had never seen before. From small gift purchases like sequined and beaded eyeglass cases emblazoned with cheery hearts or fish to large paintings dramatically perfect for a living room wall, this year's treasures are truly wonderful as local collectors discover.

Quite unexpectedly, one of my favorite artists came to town last weekend and visited my home during the Haitian art sale. Courtesy of a neighbor and friend, Haitian-born photographer Reynolds Rolles, the Saint Soleil painter Levoy Exil was my guest. The occasion for his being in South Florida, rather than in his home in Thomasaint, Haiti near Kenscoff or in New York where he also lives, was a sad one. Tiga, also known as Jean-Claude Garoute, is the founder of the Saint Soleil movement several decades ago and he is ill in a Fort Lauderdale hospice. Levoy Exil came to see Tiga and bask in his wisdom and the intensity that always characterizes their communication.

Exil brought a handful of very strong paintings that he had completed within the last several years. I purchased one for myself, a vivid canvas of a single figure -- a winged angel -- surrounded by the angularity of straight lines. These marvelous stripes are an ideal means of surrounding the angel. And the colors are heavenly -- orange, yellow, pink, always outlined in Exil's traditional black lines.

The artist also brought good news. For the first time that any of my Haitian friends can remember, the Carnival in Haiti next February will be themed. In honor of Tiga and the Saint Soleil movement of avant-garde contemporary painters, the Carnival is dedicated to both the man and the movement that elevated the status of Haitian art in the global art world. Exil is returning to Haiti on Tuesday to work on floats for the Carnival parade with several relatives. The only remaining Saint Soleil painter from the original core group -- Denis Smith -- is travelling back to Haiti from his current home in New York in order to also participate in the Carnival celebration. It's enough to make reluctant tourists return to the beleaguered country in order to witness this extraordinary event. Unfortunately, three other originals in the Saint Soleil group have passed away, including Prospere Pierre Louis, Louisiane Saint Fleurant (who was the mother of Stivenson Magloire) and, most recently, Dieuseul Paul who died last summer.

Haitian art lovers are encouraged to contact me at Luluchat@aol.com for more information about my current show or to receive a free photo packet from me via the U.S. post office, tailored to your specifications. Catching on with more and more people, Haitian art is the wave of the future. Who knows what might happen next weekend at the show? Stay tuned.

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ANIMALS IN HAITIAN ART

2006-09-26T09:20:00.000-04:00

September 25, 2006

By Candice Russell

The most natural thing in the world is for Haitian artists to include animals of all sorts in their paintings and sculptures in wood and papier-mache. As an island country whose population is or at what time was primarily rural and agrarian, Haiti and its development have gone hand-in-hand with the progress of animals. Though they see them as sources of labor (even today, you'll see cigar-smoking women riding side-saddle on horses in Port-au-Prince) or food (chickens, goats, bulls), that fact doesn't lessen their significance in the minds of Haitians who depend on them for work and sustenance. Characteristic of this fact is the painting "Papa Ogoun and Papa Zaca" by Hector Hyppolite, picture in Selden Rodman's book "Renaissance in Haiti: Popular Painters in the Black Republic." The two papas are Haitian Vodou spirits brought to glorious mortal life riding horses, a regal form of four-footed transportation.

Great artists from the beginning of the renaissance in Haitian art, dating from the mid-1940s, have used animals as subjects. Micius Stephane, featured in the recent Haitian art exhibition "Allegories of Haitian Life from the Jonathan Demme Collection," made more than a few paintings with dogs and cats in prominent roles. "Big Cat and Little Cat" (1965) shows only those two animals in a pretty domestic setting with lovely curtains. The white mother cat stands on the tile floor between two potted plants and looks lovingly at her baby white kitten. Cats, by the way, are deemed a sign of good luck in Haiti -- perhaps because only people with money can afford to own them as pets. In "Scaring Away Birds" (c. 1963), Stephane shows a flock chased away by a thrown rock and the barking of a dog from a field of millet or corn that they might destroy.

Toussaint Auguste's painting "Birds and Nests" (1949) also owned by filmmaker-collector Demme, shows five mother birds sitting on nests of eggs about to hatch, while a sixth bird sits on a branch regarding all the eggs in her nest. Auguste painted a metaphorical painting about the need for protection, guardianship and love.

Salnave Philippe-Auguste, Haiti's Rousseau, is perhaps best known for a poster reproduced from his painting of a line of pink flamingoes. Anthropomorphizing of animals is the province of Jean Veny-Brezil, whose portraits of cat families in human clothing have a poignance that is beyond animalistic. These are relationship paintings, with all the cats engaged in selling flowers or some other uniting activity.

The jungle animal genre of Haitian art is thriving with a variety of artists painting zebras, lions, tigers, giraffes and elements in verdant forests. Is this some kind of racial memory on the part of Haitian artists dating back to their ancestors' experiences in the homeland of Africa? Regardless of the inspiration, these paintings by such masters as Gabriel Alix are abundant in personality. Animal lovers are collectors of these works, which are riotously colored. Alix is also known for imaginatively adorning the branches of his rain forest trees with all manner of fruits.Animals also appear in papier-mache form -- there's a giraffe on my living room and a plump papier-mache zebra on a bookshelf.

One of my favorite animal items from Haiti was purchased by a vendor selling to people departing Haiti from the Port-au-Prince airport fifteen years ago. It's a toy carved of wood that you hold in one hand and swing so that a carved chicken sitting on a platform and attached to a string pecks at little pieces of corn. The cleverness of Haitian artists at all levels knows no bounds.

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Gallery Scene in Haiti

2006-09-17T17:37:00.000-04:00

September 16, 2006
By Candice Russell

Since this is the start of the fall season, prices have been reduced on key items on my website www.Haitianna.com to inaugurate this change. Now and in the coming weeks is the time to check the site regularly for new items, never be seen, for exceptionally good prices. This week look for new small Vodou flags, some real treasures by masters of the medium including Georges Valris, with wonderfully bargain prices at $25. Brick-and-mortar galleries sell similar flags for considerably more money. Collectors in the know, start clicking. It's likely we won't be able to keep these beauties in stock long.

The erratic gallery scene in Port-au-Prince, Haiti may not be able to nourish artists in the way it used to, even ten years ago. But that doesn't mean that artists stop creating. The market for Vodou flags, those labor-intensive squares of cloth elaborately encrusted with sequins and beads, keep being made by those in the business a long time. What's remarkable is that a large cottage industry in flags, with new creators popping up all the time, reflects the collectibility of these sacred textiles. There's nothing else even remotely like them in the world, so no wonder they are prized by people living far from the Caribbean island.

The painting scene in Haiti is questionable. One wonders how many artists are supported by galleries in Haiti versus how many others are creating in a vacuum without the backing they so crucially need. Conditions in Haiti don't make it favorable for tourists and collectors of adventurous mind to visit at the moment, exacerbating an already difficult situation. One can only hope that the vendors of good art -- metal sculptures painted and unpainted, wood masks, Vodou bottles and Vodou flags strung between trees -- are still prospering on the John Brown Road leading from Port-au-Prince to Petionville. One prays that dear Haiti and its creative geniuses are surviving and even thriving.

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Dieuseul Paul - Haitian Painter

2006-09-09T19:45:00.000-04:00

September 9, 2006

By Candice Russell

The recent death of Saint Soleil virtuoso painter Dieuseul Paul this summer has struck another blow to the Haitian art scene, both for gallery owners in Port-au-Prince and outside the country, and collectors who were curious to see more from this distinctive painter. In the paucity of information about Haitian art and artists working in the past fifteen years, it seems remarkable that we have the published records we do about Dieuseul Paul, who was interviewed in the book "Billeder Fra Haiti" or "Images from Haiti," an outstanding catalog in Danish and English based on the personal Haitian art collection of Danish filmmaker and sometime Haitian resident Jorgen Leth.

Paul said he started painting on Christmas day, 1971, though he wasn't formally exhibited with the Saint Soleil school of avant-garde Haitian painters until ten years later. Tiga Garoute, a painter himself, encouraged him and all the other Saint Soleil painters. Paul explains what he does and doesn't know about his art in "Images from Haiti:" "I am not able to give you all the explanations. That's for the intellectual, for the art critic to say what they really represent. This is what I do, this is my style. Look, here I can tell you this is a face or whether I see a flower. I can tell you this is a flower or this is a bird, but to tell you all the meaning at other levels would be very very difficult for me because I never went to school or to any painting school. It's just a mystery of Creation."

Yet he admitted there was a distinction in his own work that set it apart from the other four core artists in the Saint Soleil group -- Prospere Pierre Louis (deceased), Louisiane Saint Fleurant (deceased), Levoy Exil and Denis Smith. Those intimate with the styles of all five can immediately discern a Dieuseul Paul from a Levoy Exil, but it is hard to verbalize why. What Paul didn't address in the book was his remarkable sense of color. Hanging on my living room wall is one of my favorite paintings by this artist. "Three Women Joined," an acrylic on canvas measuring 24 1/2" by 24 1/2" framed, is a 1987 painting of the Marassa or triplets, protective Vodou spirits of children. It is rendered in Paul's traditional way, with heavy black outlining of the figures who are deep purple set against a vivid orange background. What a color combination! It sounds bizarre but somehow he made it work. Another favorite painting by Paul I found in a dusty gallery on Delmas Road in Port-au-Prince. It was on canvas and I had to have it. The problem was, it wasn't signed. I told my friend Dr. Carlos Jara, an esteemed art dealer in Haiti, to keep it and perhaps he would run into Paul some day. And he did! The next time Carlos visited me in Florida, he brought the signed painting, done in cheerful greens, reds and oranges.

The beginnings of life are the obsession of the Saint Soleil painters. Women are revered. There is a verve and energy about all the Saint Soleil artists' work. With the death of Dieuseul Paul, the value of his work increases for the specialized collector appreciative of his extraordinary paintings.

He ended his interview in "Images from Haiti" by saying this: "These are very spiritually inspired paintings representing harmony, unity and the relationship between the spiritual and the material. And this is exactly the power of art...There is such a strong spirit in Saint Soleil -- sometimes it prevents you from sleeping."

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HAITI IN THE MOVIES

2006-08-31T18:40:00.000-04:00

September 1, 2006

By Candice Russell

For art collectors enamored of Haiti, a glimpse of island life on the big screen is sufficient to fire up a desire to visit in person. But going to Haiti isn’t as easy or safe as it used to be even three years ago. Haiti-maniacs like myself are having to make do with other people’s cinematic interpretations of Haiti. A new film in theaters called "Heading South" or "Vers Le Sud," since the language is occasionally French with English subtitles, is a sensual and disturbing view of Haiti in the late 1970s, in the innocent sexual times before AIDS reined in wantonly licentious behavior.

Charlotte Rampling as a Bostonian literature professor and Karen Young as a Georgia divorcee who discovered her bliss on a Haitian beach with a well-muscled teen-age boy play rivals for the affection of the handsome Legba. He attempts to please all the women who want his company, playing no favorites because they reward him with money and gifts in return for the pleasure of his sexual performance. A considerable gap of decades separates Legba and Rampling’s character, making her the biological peer of his grandmother, but no matter to either party. Gigolos dominate the elite scene at La Petite Anse, the beachside resort where the film’s action is set, and immorality or ethics seem to be no one’s concern.

While intense jealousy plays out between the women, Legba has troubles of his own with a well-connected ex-girlfriend who wants him back. The threat of danger no less than the desperation of Haiti for poor, beautiful women hangs over the drama. Director and co-writer Laurent Cantet, working from a novel by Dany Laferriere, conveys the tension between foreigners and Haitians at nearly every turn. The relationships are pathetically unequal and devoid of respect or understanding. All the insouciance, rum drinks and coupling cannot vanquish a sense of foreboding. It’s sad, it’s true and it’s worth seeing.

From what I could gather from the end credits, the beach scenes were shot in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island mass of Hispaniola with Haiti. Discerning collectors who see "Heading South" may notice background glimpses of Vodou flags in beachside cabins and metal sculptures by Serge Jolimeau on the walls of the plein air restaurant. I’m still waiting for a film about Haitian art from a contemporary fictional or non-fictional perspective.

Jonathan Demme, who ended "The Silence of the Lambs" with Anthony Hopkins talking on the telephone in Haiti, is the logical director of choice for such an ambitious project. He previously made the documentaries "Haiti: Dreams of Democracy" in 1987 about the overthrow of the Duvalier dictatorship and "The Agronomist" about the murder of a noted peaceful man of the land. Demme’s support of human rights in Haiti and his large Haitian art collection underscore his sympathy for the place and the people.

If Demme were to make the ultimate film about Haitian art in Haiti, it would be enough to counter the depressing excesses of the lamentable "The Serpent and the Rainbow," a big-budget Universal Pictures film that perverted and sensationalized the non-fiction book of the same title by Wade Davis.

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Gay Artists Flourish in Haiti

2006-08-26T21:02:00.000-04:00

August 26, 2006

By Candice Russell

On the Caribbean island of Haiti, proud declarations of homosexuality go against the cultural norm of keeping intimate matters private. In spite of this fact, homosexual artists like the painter Prince Jean Jo, and Jean Baptiste Jean Joseph, a genius of the voodoo flag medium who lives in Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, are creating names for themselves and legacies of art that will outlive them in museums and private homes. Both artists have prized work for sale during my annual in-home Haitian art extravaganza in Plantation, scheduled every weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas..

Prince Jean Jo, a native of Jacmel who died in 1996, was stereotypically flamboyant. According to the book "Images from Haiti: Jorgen’s Leth Collection," the artist "was a controversial figure in the provincial setting because of his demonstrative homosexuality." That didn’t matter to savvy gallery owners like the late Dr. Carlos Jara, who carried the artist’s raw, graffiti-inspired canvases with overtly gay themes alongside jungle scenes, fantasy landscapes and voodoo ceremonies painted by Haitian masters. These in-your-face depictions of stiff phalluses and lesbian lip locks by Prince Jean Jo, showcased by Jara in an exhibition at the Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince in 1991, were out of step with a culture known for public modesty. Other painters, with strong political biases, including Stivenson Magloire, know the value of making their symbolism dense enough to avoid easy decoding by an enemy regime. Prince Jean Jo, whose real name was the far less colorful Jean Jose Lafontant, didn’t care who he might offend by painting what was in his heart and mind.

Working in conscious imitation of Haitian-American Jean-Michel Basquiat, the deceased graffiti painter who became a fine artist in New York City, Prince Jean Jo went beyond painting canvases. He chose to experiment with different forms in mixed media collages, one of which is pictured in "Images from Haiti." Made from wood, textiles, a coconut shell and scary-looking drips of red oil paint, "Voodoo Nouveau" (1991) makes reference to Haiti’s politics and history. He is remembered fondly by Emeraude Michel Jara, the widow of Dr. Carlos Jara, who lives in Montreal, Canada: "Prince Jean Jo was a very friendly guy who knew a lot about literature and art. He worked as an English teacher."

To reach the home and studio of Jean Baptiste Jean Joseph, a thin man of 39 fond of Nautica clothing, means driving down a dusty, unpaved road in the small town of Croix-des-Bouquets. The self-taught artist holds court in a space overwhelmed with his artistic output, with sequined and beaded squares of cloth in the making and in finished form hanging everywhere including the rafters. These voodoo flags depict in symbols and figures the spirits within the voodoo pantheon that are thought to control prosperity, health, romance, and the state of crops, among other things.

What sets his work apart is a wider range of subject matter and a vibrant use of unusual colors than his contemporaries. Joseph depicts traditional imagery, too, such as the regal-looking Virgin Mary known in Haitian voodoo as Erzulie, goddess of love. But it’s his whimsical portrayal of angels, fabulously long-tailed cats, and playful lizards, as much as his use of rich satin fabric and jewel-tone beads that distinguish the artist as someone very special.

Working side by side with Joseph is a team of teen-age boys who sit bent over clamped squares of white cotton cloth, sewing the designs made by the artist. Less demonstrative than Prince Jean Jo, Joseph does everything quietly, including negotiation for a purchase of multiple items by visiting foreign collectors. There is a lot to choose from -- similarly embellished vests, hats, eyeglass cases, and bottles.

New to his studio are a charming array of Christmas decorations including puffy hearts sequined and beaded on both sides, angels with multi-colored wings, stars, and other shapes. Joseph is alone in Haiti as a creator of these beautiful items which are designer pieces from a master of the textile medium. If one detects a touch of magic in his work, it is to be expected, since he began making voodoo flags after a dream urging him to do so. Without a mentor, Joseph the factory worker became one of Haiti’s best-known living artists.

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An Essay by Candice Russell

2006-08-18T20:52:00.000-04:00

THIS ESSAY WAS WRITTEN in September, 2004 for a local alternative newspaper about an exhibition of Haitian art, both Vodou flags and paintings, that I curated for the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Boca Raton, Florida.

By Candice Russell

My first awareness of Haitian art came during the early 1980s in the course of a midday meal at a Washington, D.C. restaurant. Though the dining room had a low ceiling and dark wood paneling, the mood of the place was unaccountably cheerful because of paintings in bright tropical colors. Beach scenes and landscapes caught my eye and the restaurant owner explained that they were from Haiti, a place known to me only through the Steely Dan song "Haitian Divorce."

In the decades since that fateful day, I have traveled to Haiti dozens of times in pursuit of art. Collecting became a borderline obsession as I sought outstanding works by name artists in Port-au-Prince galleries. Not everything, of course, was within this journalist’s budget. I wasn’t a big-time gallery owner from New York or Paris with deep pockets or an international aid worker or a monied Japanese tourist, all of whom subsidized Haitian art with regularity. But considering Haiti’s status as the poorest country within the Western Hemisphere, as well as its reputation for fine art, it was possible to build a worthy collection on modest sums. The same is probably true today, though the sites are fewer as the gallery scene has shrunk and the conditions tougher for discovering great art.

"Sequined Surfaces: Haitian Vodou Flags" and "Paintings from the Candice Russell Collection" are two exhibitions on view now through November 7 at the Boca Raton Museum of Art (561-392-2500). Both shows bear my stamp as curator. All artworks, which come from my collections, take their inspiration from spirituality and the misunderstood world-class religion of Vodou, known pejoratively in the U.S. as "voodoo." Even the exotic word has negative connotations. Former President Ronald Reagan coined the term "voodoo economics." Hollywood B-movies have luridly associated voodoo with cannibalism, though as the religion is practiced in Haiti there is absolutely no connection.

In truth, Vodou is a combination of African tribal beliefs, brought by slaves from Africa to the island centuries ago, and Roman Catholicism, foisted on the slaves by their French colonial captors. Passed down through the generations orally, rather than in written in form, Vodou remains surprisingly complex in terms of the relationship between the gods and goddesses and the traditions used to honor them.

Attending my first Vodou ceremony in Jacmel, Haiti in 1985, I was led by the wrist by a man named Vitesse on dirt roads after dark to a thatched-roof structure near the beach. After making a small monetary donation, I sat and watched people in every-day dress sing and dance the night away for hour after hour. As the only white person, I had the feeling I was seeing the preliminary aspect of a ceremony rather than the real thing, which would probably occur the moment Vitesse walked me back to my hotel. Yet I was witness to a near-possession as a young woman in pink shorts and matching hair curlers aggressively thrust her torso in synch with the demands of an unseen spirit world.

Observing other Vodou ceremonies in Haiti over the years hardly me a veteran of the scene, as each one was so different. When my friend Ginna and I arrived in Leogane, a hotbed of Vodou, the sight of us set the people near a Vodou temple into a frenzy of excitement. They couldn’t wait to plug in their instruments, dance and sing for us. We were there at the right time of year since the end of October and the beginning of November honor the spirits of the Guede family who govern the fate of the soul after death. It’s a time revelry and celebration when men dress up as women and women dress up as men.

Before I left on this trip, a Haitian friend in Miami had warned me not to get caught up in Vodou ceremonies, a statement that made me laugh because I didn’t understand how this could possibly happen. But in this Leogane cement temple with the pulsations of the drum, the singing and the excitement, I was drawn to join in. The only thing that stopped me was my friend. I leaned over to Ginna and asked if she wanted to get up and dance. "No," she said emphatically, surprised at my reaction. So I sat and maintained the role of the outsider. To this day, I wonder what it would have been like to participate and whether the seduction of the Vodou spiritual world could have drawn me to the other side.

Vodou is an integral part of Haitian art, which also takes inspiration from daily life and fantasy. On view at the Boca Museum are paintings by masters like Wilson Bigaud, La Fortune Felix, Gerard Valcin and Prospere Pierre Louis depicting the spirits and legends associated with the religion. Bigaud shows a zombie being led from a cemetery, a myth with basis in fact about the dead brought back to life. In my very first Haitian art purchase, Felix portrays a ceremony in Gauguinesque greens and purples. Papa Zaca, the god of agriculture in hungry Haiti, fills the canvas in a painting by Valcin. The late Louis, son of a Vodou priest and a prominent member of the avant-garde Saint Soleil movement of painters, uses a primitive life form to suggest the genesis of existence. If you go to the exhibition, there are written explanations next to each work.

Artifacts used in Vodou ceremonies are displayed at the other show at the Boca museum. Vodou flags are squares of cloth elaborately sewn with sequins and beads to spell words of identification and personify Vodou gods and goddesses in either symbolic or mortal form. When sewn with ties on one side, flags are used ceremonially to welcome special guests to Vodou ceremonies. They are also unfurled to attract the spirits. Made as expensively as the resources of a Vodou community can afford, flags are glittering manifestations of faith that catch the light of candles and the attention of beings on another plane. Seen in a museum context, they are beautiful textiles of anthropological importance.

The fact that so much magnificent art has come out of Haiti is worth pondering, though not easily explained. Limited in resources and desperate to stay alive, the masses in Haiti struggle with the basics of finding shelter, food, and work on a daily basis. Many self-taught artists, as most Haitian artists are, face the same difficulties in light of political instability and a moribund tourist industry. Yet their intuitive genius for color, form and composition has created a proud legacy of art and the greatest per capita explosion of art for art’s sake in the Caribbean, if not the world.

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GALLERY FOR SALE

2006-08-13T16:35:00.000-04:00

The Haitian Art Company, in business in Key West, Florida since 1977, is for sale. Owner Boris Kravitz, who lives in Haiti, is selling the historic corner property with residence upstairs for $1.6 million. That includes $1 million in inventory. One can only hope that the buyer maintains the gallery as the Haitian Art Company and doesn't sell it to a condo developer, remaindering the artwork to a wholesale buyer who couldn't care less for it. Kravitz is known for discovering artists and selling paintings next to photos of the artists, whom he knows personally. The gallery is in the midst of a major sale. If interested in purchasing the gallery, telephone (305) 296-8932 or visit the website www.haitian-art-co.com. Or email for a prospectus at HaitianArtCompany@gmail.com.

Candice Russell

HAITIAN ART THRIVES

2006-08-13T16:32:00.000-04:00

Dispite political unrest, the business of Haitian art thrives. Thank you to all the members of the Haitian Art Society, a gathering of collectors, gallery owners and museum officials from around the U.S., who came to my home in mid-May as part of a weekend-long South Florida visit. All attended the show "Allegories of Haitian Life: The Collection of Jonathan Demme" at the Bass Museum on Miami Beach, a show I co-curated with Axelle Liautaud. The one and only venue for the show was this one, so the opportunity to view the private holdings of major art collector and film director Demme was indeed special.

I met new friends from the Haitian Art Society like Bill Bollendorf of Pittsburgh and Kent Shankle of the Waterloo Center for the Arts in Waterloo, Iowa, which has a dedicated space for Haitian art and a large permanent collection of it as well. I saw old friends too, like super-collectors Beverly Sullivan of Washington, D.C. and Ed Gessen of southern California. Between the champagne and the Italian meatballs, the group that arrived on a Greyhound bus in front of my suburban home had a lot to see and talk about. But the visit of these Haitian art lovers was brief -- only 90 minutes before they headed back to Miami and dinner at Tap-Tap Restaurant on South Beach, where Haitian art is on the walls in wonderful murals and on painted furniture. The menu's deliciously Haitian.

Candice Russell
haitianna.com

Haiti - Not Safe!

2006-08-13T16:30:00.000-04:00

August 13, 2006

Now is not the time to visit Haiti, unless you are accompanied by armed guards like the United Nations' Kofi Annan. Ordinary residents, including foreigners who have been in Haiti for decades, are being kidnapped or, worse, murdered according to recent reports in the Miami Herald. Canadian missionary Ed Hughes, who runs an orphanage, was taken from his home in a town north of Port-au-Prince in late June, held for ransom and eventually released. He decided to return to Canada rather than remain in Haiti, putting himself and his orphanage at further risk. What will happen to the 120 children he fed and supported every day? No one knows. It is unlikely that fellow Canadians will rush to fill the breach. In May of this year, 29 people were kidnapped in the capital, according to the United Nations peacekeeping mission. That number rose to an alarming 49 kidnap victims in July, including the sixty-something wife of an Italian man. He was brutalized, tied and beaten death as his wife was led away to captivity. Eventually, she was released after her family paid an undisclosed sum of money.

Candice Russell

Possessed: The Art of Haiti

2006-08-07T18:33:00.000-04:00

Haitian Art Exhibition that I Curated at Coral Springs Museum of Art

By Candice Russell

When most people think of Haitian art, what comes to mind are island paintings in bold tropical colors depicting scenes of daily life. While primitive paintings have found a large and popular following in the U.S. and other countries, Haiti is getting to be well-known for other forms of artistic expression. These alternative media including metal sculptures and beautifully embellished textiles are showcased in a new exhibition "Possessed: The Art of Haiti" at the Coral Springs Museum of Art now until August 19.

The vibrant and informative show explores the tradition and meaning behind the metal sculptures crafted from recycling the metal from oil drums. This art form grew out of the discovery of iron crosses in the cemetery in Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, a small town located an hour’s drive from the capital of Port-au-Prince. The maker of the crosses with curlicues and other adornments was Georges Liautaud (1899-1991), who was encouraged to use steel, metal, brass and iron for other purposes than honoring the dead. The results were magical. Liautaud made angels, figures from comical stories, animals, crucifixions and personages from the Haitian religion of Vodou.

The bulk of the metal sculptures at the museum belong to Montreal, Canada resident Emeraude Michel-Jara, the widow of important Haitian art dealer Dr. Carlos Jara. These rare works are a testament to Dr. Jara’s friendships with artists in Haiti including metal masters Serge Jolimeau, Gabriel Bien-Aime, Luce Turnier and Lionel Saint-Eloi. Some artists in the show prefer to adorn their metal sculptures with coats of paint to add shadow, texture and personality to their creations. Whimsical examples include "Big Fish" by Christobal and "Cats in a Tree" by Norbert.

Sharing the stage in "Possessed" are sacred squares of cloth meticulously hand-sewn with sequins and beads to honor the spirits of Haitian Vodou. For that reason, they serve a purpose that is more than decorative. Used by Americans as wall hangings or pillow covers, Vodou flags can be figurative or symbolic in representing the male and female spirits who control all aspects of life, from the fertility of crops to successful romances. Made to be as expensive as the resources of a community will allow, these flags are glittering manifestations of faith.

Thirteen artists who make Vodou flags are found at the Coral Springs Museum of Art including Clotaire Bazile, known for his traditional portrayal of the spirits, and the late Antoine Oleyant, who used the cloth more as a painter in his free-handed creations. Amena Simeon, one of the growing number of women artists in this medium, is represented by "Couzin Zaka," the bare-footed spirit of agriculture wearing a jaunty hat. Other examples by Prospere Pierre Louis and Wagler Vital, known primarily as painters, demonstrate the validity of translating their visions from canvas to another kind of cloth plus embellishment.

As a tribute to Haitian art, "Possessed" is cause for speculation and wonder. All the works in the exhibition are from untrained artists who never studied form, composition or color. All labored under the most difficult conditions in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere to create art for generations to come.

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Haitian Art Society

2005-09-24T21:04:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to the Haitian Art Society, a U.S. group of Haitian art lovers and avid collectors, on their outing this weekend to the Canadian city of Montreal! Following a talk by Frantz Voltaire about the early days of the le Centre d'Art, largely credited with jump-starting the mid-20th century renaissance in Haitian art in Port-au-Prince, the society members went to the exhibition "Magic Island" from Frank Polyak at Restaurant Les Iles de Catherine at 3097 Rue Notre Dame East.

Today the society members are visiting the private collection of Haitian art at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Halvor Jaeger, followed by a visit to Mosaikart, a Haitian art gallery owned by Myrtelle Chery, whose telephone number is (514) 849-3399. If you aren't a part of the Haitian Art Society but want to join, please click on the link to the society's website elsewhere on "Haitianna.com." If you would just like to visit the above venues, contact them directly on your own. Please spread the word about the greatness of Haitian art and its continued vibrancy in the present day, despite political uncertainty, poverty and other ongoing problems.

By Candice Russell

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Haitian Art Society

2005-08-31T15:16:00.000-04:00

The Haitian Art Society is devoted to people crazy about Haitian art in all of its visual aspects, from paintings to ceremonial textiles known as Vodou flags. Haitian art lovers who live in South Florida have a special opportunity when the Haitian Art Society comes to Miami in the fall of 2006 for a series of events. With the details still to be worked out, the activities will include visits to avid collectors of Haitian art and a chance to meet with people from around the country who share this particular passion. For more information, visit the Haitian Art Society website -- a link is provided on this haitianna.com website. It's worth the modest annual fee to be part of its activities.

By Candice Russell

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Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa

2005-08-21T22:08:00.000-04:00

A new and permanent venue for Haitian art has been added to the museum scene. Congratulations to the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa, newly opened earlier this month on August 6th. The $46 million structure has a significant Haitian art collection, which will be shown on a rotating basis in one 3,000 square foot gallery of the museum along with travelling exhibitions. Key to the Haitian art holdings is the donation of important paintings and other Haitian artworks by Davenport resident Dr. Walter Neiswanger, who travelled to Haiti, befriended artists and gallery owners, and followed his heart in buying works of greatness. Look for a major retrospective of Haitian-American artist Edouard Duval-Carrie to open at the Figge in early 2006. The Davenport was the first U.S. museum to buy and show the paintings of Duval-Carrie, probably the best-known Haitian expatriate artist alive and a major force on the international contemporary art scene.

By Candice Russell

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How Do Haitians Really Live?

2005-08-07T19:06:00.000-04:00

Have you ever wondered how Haitian art fits into a home setting? Or how Haitians of all classes really live? The answers to both questions are answered visually in an exquisite, recently published coffee table book in an oversized, horizontal format. With minimal text in English and French, "Interieurs d'Haiti" by Roberto Stephenson and Marie-Louise Fouchard is a treat for the eyes. When a Haitian friend visited my home recently from Canada, she saw the book and immediately went to Libreri Mapou in Miami for two copies -- one for herself and one as a housewarming gift for her sister in Brooklyn.

These lushly photographed homes are sometimes decorated with great Haitian art, including outstanding paintings by Saint Soleil masters Prospere Pierre Louis and Levoy Exil. One gets a sense of how Haitians of all classes live, perhaps most starkly in the juxtaposed images of a humble abode with clothing hung above the bed and walls decorated with newspaper and an all-white, tres modern home of sweeping architectural curves, a cold and monastic space suited for a person in need of calm. There are homes of artists pictured, too, in this remarkable book including the tasteful home of Philippe Dodard and his wife and the orange, shuttered living room with voodoo-inspired sculpture occupied by Mario Benjamin. Other artists with homes pictured are Barbara Prezeau (modern, comfortable) and Lionel Saint Eloi, who built his castle-like house in Port-au-Prince to resemble a tall drum. This is a book to savor for anyone appreciative of what goes on in Haiti, art-wise or otherwise.

- Candice Russell -

Jonathan Demme Collection of Haitian Art

2005-07-24T07:45:00.000-04:00

It's official! The Jonathan Demme Collection of Haitian Art, devotedly collected for the past 20 years by the U.S. filmmaker who made "Philadelphia" and "The Silence of the Lambs," is coming to the Bass Museum of Art on Miami Beach (south Florida) in May, 2006 for a summer-long run. As the one and only stop for this unique show, this is the opportunity for lovers of Haitian art in the U.S., Canada, Europe and beyond to start thinking about a visit to the museum. The co-curators are myself (Candice Russell, haitianna.com) and my friend Axelle Liautaud (haitian-art-crafts.com), an artist, fellow Haitian art dealer, and native of Haiti. We are currently working on a full-color catalog, which will be sold in the Bass Museum gift shop during the exhibition run. Demme's collection includes a bounty of choice paintings by such masters as Hector Hyppolite, Rigaud Benoit, Andre Pierre, Alexandre Gregoire, Etienne Chavannes, as well as sculptures in iron by Georges Liautaud. A credit to one man's collecting acumen, the show is also a glimpse of the Haitian visual culture so widely praised and prized over the last 60 years.

by Candice Russell

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Death of a Great Artist

2005-07-04T15:13:00.000-04:00

It is with great sadness that we learned within the past month that the wonderful Saint Soleil school artist Louisiane Saint Fleurant passed away. She was known for her expressive canvases of women and children, houses and flowers -- inevitably cheerful works in a distinctive hand. A primitivist, Saint Fleurant was also a fantastic colorist. One of my favorite paintings by her features a female figure encased multiple times in circles of light, her version of an angel. She was also famous for equally emotive ceramic figures usually wearing florally decorated berets. Her death means that the value and collectibility of her art will increase, not only because of its limited supply and growing rarity.
Saint Fleurant was the mother of the late Stivenson Magloire, once called the hope of the new generation of Haitian artists, and the painter Ramphis Magloire, who managed her career in later years. For the original core group of Saint Soleil painters, there now remain only three -- Levoy Exil, Denis Smith and Dieuseul Paul, since Prospere Pierre Louis died a while ago.
--Candice Russell

Holy H20

2005-06-28T07:53:00.000-04:00

Here's another art exhibition featuring some paintings and voodoo flags from Haiti. Called "Holy H₂0: Fluid Universe," this show at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland now through September 4^th also has a shrine to La Sirene, the Haitian voodoo goddess of the sea pictured as a mermaid. She controls the fate of anyone who has anything to do with salt water, from fishermen to swimmers and boat people fleeing Haiti for a better life in the U.S.

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Jonathan Demme

2005-06-20T20:30:00.000-04:00

From the desk of Candice Russell-----

Art lovers in the northeast, especially New York-New Jersey area, have a rare opportunity this summer to see the critical acumen of a singular Haitian art collector in one New York City art gallery. American filmmaker Jonathan Demme ("The Silence of the Lambs," "Philadelphia," "Married to the Mob") is showing 18 paintings from such masters as Hector Hyppolite, Bourmond Byron, Micius Stephane, Philome Obin and Castera Bazile in the Cavin-Morris Gallery located at 560 Broadway, Suite 405-B in New York City for a special sale that runs from June 23 to July 29. For more information, telephone (212) 226-3768.

Speaking of Jonathan Demme, his extensive and beloved private collection of masterpieces will be on view at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach beginning NEXT May, 2006 for a summer exhibition. Co-curators of this show, that is only appearing at this single venue, are myself and Axelle Liautaud, who has an art gallery called Gingerbread in Petionville, Haiti. A heavily illustrated full-color catalog is being published to coincide with this special exhibition. Whether or not you see the show in person, the catalog will be a valuable addition to the personal library of any Haitian art collector.

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Haitian Art Event in South Florida

2005-01-07T20:54:00.000-05:00

Does anybody know of any upcomming Haitian Art Events?