30177: Lally (review) ,Demme's Collection at Ramapo (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Reynald Lally <concordehaiti@yahoo.com>

February 11, 2007
Art Review
From the New York Times
Haitian Revelation By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO
Mahwah

The show of Haitian art at Ramapo College is a rare and affirmative statement 
of a remarkable artistic tradition. A wonder and a revelation, the exhibition 
concentrates on artists associated with the Centre d’Art in Haiti, where an 
important movement of self-taught artists emerged in the 1940s and 1950s. All 
the work on display in the Kresge Foundation Gallery is drawn from the private 
collection of the filmmaker Jonathan Demme, a former artist in residence at the 
college. Mr. Demme agreed to an exhibition of his works here after learning 
that the college had a collection of Haitian outsider and folk art donated by 
Selden Rodman, an American critic, collector and former co-director of the 
Centre d’Art. That work is on permanent display in the Selden Rodman Gallery of 
Popular Arts across campus in the main academic building, known as Wing B. 
(Visitors with time might also find that exhibition worthwhile.) Though most of 
the names will be unfamiliar to the casual viewer, many of the artists in the 
present show are acknowledged masters of outsider art, a term often applied to 
artists without formal training. Among them are Hector Hyppolite, Philome Obin, 
Wilson Bigaud and Castera Bazile, all of whose works are sought after by 
collectors and museums. Two of the paintings by Mr. Hyppolite in this show were 
once owned by André Breton, the founder of the French Surrealist movement. The 
works are mostly small, vibrantly colorful paintings of village scenes, 
religious ceremonies, portraits and tropical fruit and flowers. Their power and 
allure derive in no small measure from their sentimentality, the nostalgic 
subject matter coupled with a rawness of execution. Little wonder early art 
critics labeled this work primitive and naïve, an appraisal reflected in the 
title of the exhibition.
But critics have come to appreciate the unique coloration and compositional 
qualities of the work, which rather than being primitive or naïve actually 
suggests a unique, independent movement of modernist art in Haiti. The artists 
were way out ahead of the critics and the public.
Mr. Hyppolite (1894-1948) was a remarkable talent, turning to painting in the 
last years of his life after working as a shoemaker, a plantation laborer and a 
vodun priest. Using his fingers, brushes of chicken feathers and enamel paint 
made for use on furniture, he produced about 150 paintings, many with strong 
religious themes blending vodun and Catholic imagery and traditions. He 
believed he was called by spirits to paint.
Mr. Hyppolite’s paintings are often roughly rendered and occasionally messy, 
but they are always rich and full of joy. This joyous sense also pervades 
Toussaint Auguste’s paintings of everyday life in the countryside. In one we 
see a group of women preparing a feast of tropical fruits; in another a family 
works together to grind grain into flour. Each is a marvelous lake of color. 
Also on display is a selection of rare woodblock prints by artists associated 
with the Centre d’Art, along with several metal sculptures by Georges Liautaud, 
Haiti’s pre-eminent self-taught modern sculptor. They are spirit figures 
mostly, hewn from metal sheets cut from discarded oil drums. To complement the 
main display in the Kresge gallery, the adjoining Pascal gallery is showing a 
small selection of work by Haitian artists associated with the Centre d’Art. 
Some are drawn from the college’s permanent Rodman collection, with the rest on 
loan from Carole Rodman, Mr. Rodman’s widow. These paintings range in date from 
the 1940s to the present. There are works by Mr. Hyppolite and Mr. Obin, among 
other early masters, as well as by artists of the generation who followed in 
their footsteps. An example is Buffon Thermidor, who was influenced by Mr. 
Obin’s more playful, realistic Cap Haitien style of painting.
Mr. Thermidor appears to have had some contact with fine art institutions, 
judging by his style and presentation, but his colorful imagery gives viewers 
no less pleasure. What does the label “outsider artist” mean anyway? Looking at 
the marvelous paintings here by two generations of Haitian artists, you begin 
to realize it doesn’t really matter. “An Apparently Unimportant Event: 
Self-Taught from the Centre d’Art in the 1940s and 50s,” Kresge and Pascal 
galleries, Berrie Center, Ramapo College, 505 Ramapo Valley Road, Mahwah, 
through March 7. Information: www.ramapo.edu/berriecenter /galleries or (201) 
684-7147.



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