Préfète Duffaut (1 January 1923 – 6 October 2012)
was a
Haitian
painter.
Biography
Born in
Cyvadier,
Sud-Est, near the seaport of
Jacmel
Jacmel (; ht, Jakmèl) is a commune in southern Haiti founded by the Spanish in 1504 and repopulated by the French in 1698. It is the capital of the department of Sud-Est, 24 miles (39 km) southwest of Port-au-Prince across the Tiburon Peninsu ...
, where he lived and worked. The painter
Pauleus Vital (1918–1984) was Duffaut's half-brother, the painter
Jean Charles Duffaut (*1970) is his son. Duffaut's mother died when he was two years old.
Duffaut was one of the painters, alongside important Haitian artists such as
Gesner Abelard
Gesner Abelard (born 22 February 1922) was a Haitian painter and sculptor. Born in Port-au-Prince, Abelard began life as a mechanic, then studied painting and sculpture at the Industrial School of Port-au-Prince under the painter Humberman Charl ...
and
Rigaud Benoit
Rigaud Benoit (1911–1986) had become one of the three or four most highly prized Haitian artists well before his death.
Early life
A native of Port-au-Prince, Benoit had been a shoemaker, musician, and taxi driver before making his living as a ...
, at the
Centre d'Art in the Haitian capital. In the early 1950s Duffaut was one of several artists invited to paint
murals in the interior of the
Cathedral of Sainte Trinité (largely destroyed in the
January 2010 earthquake) in
Port-au-Prince; his works there were titled "''The Temptation of Christ''" and "''The Processional Road''" (also referred to as the "''Procession of the Crossing Guard''").
Duffaut paints in the vernacular style and his oeuvre typically consists of fantastical "imaginary cities" (villes imaginaires), that often contain coastal elements with boats. The
cityscapes
In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. ''Townscape'' ...
are strongly influenced by the coastal city of Jacmel. Another recurrent theme, especially in earlier works, is imagery associated with
Vodou.
Duffaut's work has been exhibited and collected widely outside of Haiti.
His body of paintings continues to be a strong influence on contemporary Haitian artists such as
Prince Luc (Luckner Candio).
References
Further reading
*
*
* - Exhibition catalogue of Haitian Art show at The Brooklyn Museum of Art, 09/02 to 11/05, 1978
*
External links
Le peintre Préfète Duffaut et la genèse de son oeuvre- Article about the oevre of Duffaut on Caraïb Express Blog by Marie Flore Domond. (French text)
Préfète Duffaut: piété et urbanisme imaginaire- Excerpt of a 2007 documentary directed by Arnold Antonin. (French and Haitian Creole language)
(French text)
- Posted on discoverhaiti.com.
Documentary by Arnold Antonin - Préfète Duffaut: Piété et urbanisme imaginaire
{{DEFAULTSORT:Duffaut, Prefete
1923 births
2012 deaths
Contemporary painters
Haitian painters
Haitian male painters
People from Jacmel