About the Artist
Préfète Duffaut was born in 1923. As an unhappy child and then as a youthful shipwright, Duffaut found solace in drawing and painting. Later he decorated the walls of his house in his native Jacmel, and, in response to instructions received from the Virgin Mary in a dream, a chapel on the Island of La Gonave. Photographs of his work soon reached the Centre d'Art, where he was already known to Rigaud Benoit, one of the seminal names in Haitian art. He joined the Centre in 1948, and in 1951 painted two murals for the Holy Trinity Cathedral.
A prolific and successful artist, Duffaut maps fantastic toy-like landscapes in brightly-colored, intricate, and very detailed compositions that are geometric in their precision. These are often dominated by iconic Vodun/Christian figures and are directly related to the artist's complex and visionary world view.
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