Rigaud Benoit is one of the supreme masters of Haitian art. His huge mural, The Raising of Lazarus, is one of three that rise above the high altar in the Episcopal Cathedral. (The others are by Castera Bazile and Philomé Obin.)

   According to legend, Benoit was driver of the Centre d'Art's jeep in the late 1940s. Spotting artistic talent in decorations Benoit had applied to the vehicle, DeWitt Peters urged him to paint.

   In the film Krik? Krak! (see Reading), Benoit disputes that account. He says he was a taxi driver; visited the Centre d'Art on his day off; decided he could do as well as artists exhibited there; returned home; painted a bit; brought a couple of works to Peters; and was immediately enrolled as one of the Centre's resident artists.

   Benoit worked slowly and carefully, a

handful of pieces a year. Collectors vied for his art from the very beginning. His better works today command five figure prices.

   I tried to locate Benoit on several visits to Haïti in the 1970s and early '80s. Gallery owners were, under-standably, not helpful.
   In 1985 I ran into a broker (or hustler) who took me to Bigaud's home. I commissioned this painting — the last, as it turned out, that the artist completed.

   A few months before Benoit's death the 'broker' called to say 'my' work was finished. I rushed from San Francisco to Port-au-Prince — cashier's check in hand — to find that the painting existed only in charcoal.
   In its place, Benoit offered me a large and gorgeous vodou piece. Though he said I could pay him in installments, I was uncomfortable with the idea, declined his offer, and have regretted it ever since.

   103. Wedding Reception_
       1986 (18x24)

  In early 2006 Nader's gallery (Links) was offering a similar Benoit, also 18x24, for $35,000. That work, however, had less detail — fewer chairs, fewer people — and less movement in the dancers. I suspect it may be a copy by Rigaud Benoit, Jr, a not unaccom-plished painter who, after all, had my painting in his hands for several days.

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   The night before I finally located Benoit, I'd gone to the casino recently installed in what had been the restaurant of the El Rancho Hotel in Petionville.
   Not being much of a gambler, I'd played a five–cent slot machine. Voila! I hit the jackpot — 5,000 nickels, or $250.
   That was close to all the cash I had for my last day in Haïti: as usual I'd already bought a lot of paintings.
   Benoit asked for a down–payment of $1,750, or half of what he wanted for the painting I wanted to commission.
  I told him I had only $250 on me, but would send him a check for the remaining $1,500 as soon as I returned to California. He agreed.

   I sent the check, mindlessly, not by registered mail. It didn't arrive and didn't arrive. I received many phone calls from the broker asking where the money was. Finally I put a trace on the letter and a stop-payment on the check.

The Rest of the Story

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   The envelope had gone to … Tahiti.

   I sent another check to Benoit — this one for the balance of what he wanted for the painting. I asked the broker to destroy the first one if and when it arrived. Both checks got to Haïti about the same time; and, of course, both were cashed. (So much for stop–payment orders.)

   A second call came informing me not only that Benoit had finished the painting, but that he had died.
   I was on a plane the next day, arriving in Haïti only to find that my 'broker' had failed to secure the work and that the artist's daughter, had squirelled the painting to Montréal, where she lived.

   Another great artist, J–E Gourgue, inter-

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* He also failed to secure a work I had commissioned a bit earlier from Adam Léontis, who died about the same time as Benoit.  

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vened. Gourgue spent hours negotiating an agreement that awarded me the painting. It required an extortionate payoff to Rigaud Benoit, Jr and his sister, and still another flight — this one to New York City — to pick up the work. My total outlay was nearly four times Benoit's asking price. For less than I ended up spending, I could have had Benoit's fine vodou piece.

   For all that, I love this work and its details — the musicians, the buffet, the intricately drawn chairs. (The individual strands of wicker are not visible in the photo.) Bigaud's daughter, who brought the painting from Montréal to New York, thought the musicians especially 'typical of my father.'
   The work is a wedding reception, not the wedding ceremony I had wanted. No matter: it's a Rigaud Benoit — and there aren't a lot of them. (A similar work, dated 1977, appears in Gérald Alexis's Peintres Haïtien: see Reading).