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G. Emmanuel Ducasse was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on December 24,
1903 to a middle class family. He received a formal education, unlike most
Haitian artists, and worked for the Haitian government as an agriculture agent. He
spent most of his time traveling throughout the country and the United States.
When Ducasse lost his job in 1948 he turned to painting to make a living. In one
respect his work must be classified with the best of the peasant artists. His style,
like theirs, owes nothing to the familiar canons of modern art. His presentation is
down-to-earth, forthright, frontal, and without the palette, easel and paints that so
often accompany an artist's effort to isolate himself from his fellows. Ducasse
achieved unique distinction for being one of the first Haitian artists to be offered a one-
man show abroad. He also became the first Haitian artist to paint a snow scene.
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Wilson Bigaud, a St. Trinite muralist, is considered one of the great
masters of Haitian art. He began painting under the direction of Hector Hyppolite
when he was fifteen. His most popular piece is the mural Marriage at Cana
painted between 1950 and 1951 for the Holy Trinity Cathedral. He was the only
one of the muralists who made paintings later on based on his murals. He
suffered a series of nervous breakdowns between 1957 and 1961 and stopped
working for an extended period of time. BigaudĘs work remains highly
respected and he is represented in the permanent collection of the Museum of
Modern Art in New York.
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Jasmin Joseph was born in Grande Riviere du Nord in 1924. Growing up in
an impoverished family he was never able to attend school. His interest in
sculpture was ignited in 1948 when Jason Seley, an American sculptor teaching
at the Centre d'Art brought some work to the brick factory where he was working.
He was inspired to try his hand at sculpting and presented his work to Seley who
was so impressed he began training Joseph in terra-cotta. In 1950 Joseph turned
from sculpting to painting. He discontinued making ceramic acrobats and
dragons when pirated copies of his work appeared for sale. The paintings he
made were often gently satirical. Human beings, he seemed to be saying, are a
cut above the apes, but only a cut.
Jasmin is the last surviving artist of the First Generation and is
represented in several museums and private collections.
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Nascius Joseph, born in Petit Goave, is one of the undisputed masters of sculpture in chiseled stone and carved wood. He has works in the Ramapo College and Yale University Art Gallery Collections, as well as in museums in Davenport, Iowa, and Milwaukee. The piece in the Evans' Collection is comparatively small, but as commanding and mysterious as any of Nascius's works. Does it represent a phase of the Crucifixion? Or a slave in colonial times preparing for torture by the French? Whatever the subject, it breathes Nascius characteristic anguish and compassion. |
 Christ Form with Mary Magdalene,carved oak, 1985 |
 Man Sitting, stone, 1981 (Click the picture to see his other sculpture) |
Georges Laratte, another undisputed master of sculpture in chiseled stone and carved wood, was born in the north of Haiti where Arawak graves are plentiful. Laratte is considered at his best when executing small-carved pieces. Many wonder whether he could have been influenced by Henry Moore's open- work figure, or perhaps if he had seen photographs of the great Englishman's sculptures. But Laratte's pieces are his own, and may owe as much to pre- Colombian pottery he must have seen in and around Cap Haitian as a boy. |
| Prosper Pierre-Louis was born in Bainet, in the south of Haiti, on October
12, 1947. He, like other Haitian artists, did not attend school. He began his
career in art at the age of 26. He was the leading figure in the Saint-Soleil
commune. Saint-Soleil was established by two Haitian intellectuals to
initiate painting by peasant artists. The young artists were told that real painters
do not sell their work for profit. The mendacious advice was believed until the
artists found out that their works were being sold abroad. After Saint Soleil
disbanded, Pierre-Louis and other artists reorganized into the group Cinq Soleils.
Pierre-Louis was an active, successful painter when he died prematurely of an
asthma attack in November 1996.
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