214. Landscape_
c1999 (16x24)

   Born in Gonaïves, Brésil moved to the capital in 1973. His talent was quickly recognized and gallery owners encouraged and subsidized his early work. He received a UNESCO Prix d'Honneur in 1981 and exhibited widely outside Haïti — in the United States, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Japan.
   In his lush and dense landscapes, shades of green predominate, often with complementary blues and contrasting but small highlights in red and yellow. Brésil's works now commonly sell in the four figures. This painting was acquired — at a bargain price — in a November 2000
e–bay auction.
   The artist is said to have died 'violently,' but I know no details.

28. Tonton Macoute
c1976 (24x19)

Nothing known: just liked it.
   Tonton Macoute is a vodun bogeyman: parents warn children that, if they misbehave, he will spirit them away. The paramilitary police force with which the Duvaliers terrorized the Haitian people for nearly three decades was called 'Tontons Macoutes.'
    In December 2000 a Bruny was offered in an e–Bay auction. Another appears (as sold) on the website of Indigo Arts, a Philadelphia gallery, at www.haitianspirit.com. They are the only other Brunys I've ever seen.

110. Scène rurale
c1988 (18x24)

   Bourmond Byron boasts one of the most distinctive styles of any Haitian artist. Born near Jacmel, on Haïti's long southern peninsula, he brought paintings to the Centre d'Art in Port–au–Prince as early as 1954. For the next half–century he would appear, unannounced, at one gallery or another offering works both distinctive and of uniformly high quality.
   His work is noted for its brooding, dark colors, with blues and blue-greens predominating. Though he's featured in many collections, Byron remains an under–appreciated artist. (His daughter, Benita, paints in a similar style.) 

215. Peche
c2000 (16x20)

64. Marché_
c1985 (36x24)

   In the early 1970s, a painting much like these two appeared on the cover of the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Casimir had earlier done similar works, but also more traditional studies of everyday life. (For an earlier Casimir, click the Marché thumbnail, right.)
   After his Times cover, however, he'd found his 'formula' — something that sold — and he has since painted basically the same thing over and over. In that he's not alone. The desperate poverty in Haïti, even among some of the finest Haitian artists, encourages painters to do whatever will bring them a bit of money.
   Since it sells, the formula has been imitated by scores of Haitians. Few if any of these derivative 'crowd' or 'market' scenes are so carefully executed as Casimir's.
   I avoided buying a Casimir for over a decade. I got my first one because of a Port-au-Prince gallery owner's exactions. (See Léontis.) It was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake: there's a horizontal cut toward the upper left. Suspecting I might never have it repaired, and deciding finally that I did want to document this feature of Haitian art — and its preëminent practitioner — I bought a second Casimir (from a different gallery).

181. Marché
c1999 (24x20)