When it comes to art, it is difficult to beat Haiti for variety and value.
Destination ArtUndoubtedly, one of the country’s strongest attractions is its highly original, vividly colorful paintings. The northern region of Haiti is home to majority of those fascinating and world-renowned artists. The region possesses a number of monumental wonders. When it comes to arts, it is a personal matter, which is taken very seriously in the northern region. After all, the master of all Haitian painters was born in the very heart and soul of the country” La Ville du Cap Haitien”.
Philomé Obin (July 20, 1892 – August 1986) was a Haitian painter. He was arguably the greatest of all Haitian artists. Philomé Obin was born in Cap-Haïtien, the third child of Mr. and Mrs. Obénard Obin. He received rudimentary instruction in drawing as a boy and produced his first known painting in 1908. He was still working at his art three-quarters of a century later.
Most of the paintings of Obin’s first half-century – often on cardboard, sometimes on Masonite – are lost. They were, in any event, unappreciated by middle-class Haitians who preferred works that aped French paintings; they did not value Obin’s representations of Haitian street scenes or his visions of Haitian history. A former ambassador to France confided to this editor in 1983 that, in Paris, he had gained entry into certain Parisian circles because of Philomé Obin. He shamefully confessed that “this man was there living in the same city with me and I didn’t know his worth not until I was in France.”
Two decades after his death, works by Philomé Obin are sometimes available at galleries in Port-au-Prince, Santo Domingo, and Sotheby’s in New York, and elsewhere throughout the world, including the Internet. Prices typically range from $40,000 to $100,000 and more.
In 1935, U.S. art critic Selden Rodman visited Cap-Haitien and wrote a play, “The Revolution,” about Haitian heroes Henri Christophe, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Toussaint L’Ouverture. He later became co-director of the Centre d’Art with Dewitt Peters, and directed the painting of the famous murals in Eglise St. Trinite by Philomé Obin, Castera Bazile and Riguaud Benoit. In 1948, he opened a Haitian art center in New York to publicize its merits, and over the years has written several books on the subject.
Please, visit www.artsofhaiti.com to explore the diversity and the unique styles of the Northern region.
