|
7. Scéne rurale
c1972 (48x24) |
|
Mentor, a native
of St Louis de Sud, is a fine naïf. He's been extensively exhibited; but he's mostly ignored in books on Haitian art,
though Eva Pataki's curious opus (see Reading)
includes him. His works rarely appear in galleries, real or virtual,
although two were offered, in mid–2002, by
www.interiorsfineart.com/–haitiancollection.asp and in 2006 at
www.martellyart.net.
Purchased on the
recommendation of Néhemy Jean (see right), this painting has
occupied a prominent location in each
of the some dozen apartments and
houses I've lived in the past three–plus decades.
|
|
An
Evening with Néhemy
During my first visit to Haïti, in July 1972, I did something I repeated
on the next couple of my nearly two dozen trips. I asked a gallery owner I liked
— and from whom I'd already bought something — to choose one of his favorites for
me.
This
work was selected by Néhemy Jean, a fine painter who billed
his L'Atelier as 'the only gallery owned by a Haitian.'
That was
a bit misleading. Though the major galleries were owned by people of
Near Eastern descent, most of them were either Haïti–born
or longtime residents. (And the modern Haitian art movement's midwives, DeWitt Peters and Selden Rodman, were
both Americans.)
Néhemy's
choice followed a surreal evening.
My
companion and I had invited Néhemy to dinner and asked him to pick a
restaurant. He selected Chez Gérard
in Petionville, then — with La Lanterne — the finest in Haïti. He called for us at our hotel,
the déclassé Castel
Haïti (the one building in Haïti with an elevator) in his Chevrolet
Impala.
We drove up the Rue Delmas
in Néhemy's air–conditioned car … Mozart on the stereo tapedeck … passing
hordes of unshod people plodding up and down the road in a vain
hope of escaping the
sweltering heat.
The meal was fabulous; we went
bar–hopping when it was over; and I did not meet the real Haïti until my
next visit, seventeen months later. |
