This mini-doc (5 min) was part of a series of mini-docs of thirteen artists — masters of Haitian painting and sculpture — who were included in the first major exhibit of Haitian Art in the U.S. at The Brooklyn Museum in 1978.  Ute Stebich, the curator of this exhibit of painting, sculpture and papier mache objects, conducted the original interviews that are featured here.   The artist videos were part of a video jukebox featured in the galleries where the work was displayed.  Two other longer video documentaries were screened on monitors in the galleries — an introduction to Haitian Art and Ra-Ra, a Haitian festival.

The artists included in this video juke box were:  Painters:  Philome Obin, Rigaud Benoit, Salnave Philippe -Auguste, Jasmin Joseph, Gerard Valcin, Prefete Duffaut, Andre Pierre, Jacques -Enguerrand Gourgue, Bernard Sejourne, Max Gerbier, Celestin Faustin;  and the sculptors:  Georges Liautaud and Serge Jolimeau

Gerard Valcin — like most of the artists featured in this exhibit — came from humble origins.  He had only three years of schooling.  And, like many of his colleagues, he began painting from his rich spiritual imagination — influenced by country life as well as a blending of voodou and Masonic Masonry.   He earned a living as a tile setter before taking up painting, encouraged by a group of artist friends.   He,  like a number of the other painters his age, was encouraged by Dewitt Peters who in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60s established the Centre d’Arte in Port-au-Prince, to  nurture and sell the works of Haiti’s indigenous and largely untrained talent.

Valcin’s paintings of the combite — the community circle of field workers who sing and play drums while working — are powerful for their repetitious rhythm of details. You can feel the drums in his paintings.