Edouard King Fong Wah (1938 in

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( , ; ht, Pòtoprens ) is the capital and most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 987,311 in 2015 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The metropolitan area is define ...

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

– September 30, 2003 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti), better known as Edouard Wah, was a renowned Haitian painter.

Early life

Wah was born and raised in the country's capital city of

. Wah was of mixed ancestry: his mother was Afro-Haitian and his father was a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

immigrant. At the age of seven, while attending one of the best parochial schools of the capital, he received his first formal instruction in perspective and anatomy. To further enhance his natural abilities, his father had him tutored by one of Haiti's premier art teachers during that era. A few years later, Wah began utilizing mediums that he did not have much practice with before, notably

oil on canvas Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

and

masonite Masonite is a type of hardboard, a kind of engineered wood, which is made of steam-cooked and pressure-molded wood fibers in a process patented by William H. Mason. It is also called Quartrboard, Isorel, hernit, karlit, torex, treetex, and pr ...

. Early in his career, he deviated from his original "naif" style characteristic of Haitian art to experiment with classical era painting. After experimenting and subsequently mastering these styles, he ultimately settled for the modern eclectic style which he then identified himself with, despite the fact that it was introduced to him in the latter part of his artistic career.

Years in Port-au-Prince

In 1952, Wah and his younger brother Bernard studied at Foyer des Arts Plastiques school in Port-au-Prince, picking up new techniques with such Haitian experts as Petion Savain, Dieudonne Cedor, Wilson Jolicoeur, Luckner Lazard and many others. Aside from painting, Wah's other interests included acting, which he took up as a side job to his artistic career. In 1963, Wah decided to found a cultural center "Calfou", also in Port-au-Prince, as a means of allowing people to experience Haitian culture, notably the arts and music. During that same year, he and his brother were commissioned by the Haitian government to restore the murals in the bicentennial section of the city, which encompassed certain other cultural centers and public buildings in the capital.

Legacy

In 1971, during the peak of the Duvalier regime, Wah emigrated to the United States, relocating to

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

where he would reside for the next thirteen years. On one of many visits to his homeland, Edouard King Fong Wah died on September 27, 2003, in his beloved country of Haiti. He is survived by two daughters and two sons.

Early life

Years in Port-au-Prince

Legacy

Notable works

References

External links

See also