Préfète Duffaut Oil Painting of Haitian Village, 1965

Item Details

Préfète Duffaut (Haitian, 1923 – 2012)
Untitled (Haitian village), 1965
Oil painting on Masonite panel
Signed to the lower left
Inscribed to the backing paper to the verso

Préfète Duffaut was born in Haiti in the southwestern coastal city of Jacmel, where he worked with his father as a shipwright. Known for drawing and painting in his spare time, he was invited to paint murals in the church of Notre Dame de Lourdes. Duffaut gained local notoriety and was introduced to Dewitt Peters and Rigaud Benoit while in Port-au-Prince. He joined the Centre D’Art in 1948 and was asked, along with several notable Haitian artists, to create murals for the Cathedral of Sainte Trinité, most of which were destroyed in the 2010 earthquake. Considered a naive painter, Duffaut’s work is characterized by rows of brightly colored houses arranged on sometimes fantastical and geometric configurations of the Haitian landscape. His work is also heavily influenced by religion and focuses on two themes, depictions of the Virgin Mary/Erzulie and of the ‘imaginary city’, exploring the complex relationships between man, land, sky, and ocean. Duffaut’s work has been collected by Jackie Kennedy Onassis, among many other private collectors, and by institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Figge Art Museum, among others.

Condition

- scratch across the lower left of the image; small areas of discoloration to the clouds; abrasions and nicks along the edges of the frame.

Dimensions

- measures frame; sight measures 19.5" W x 15.5" H.

Item #

ITMG074104