This mini-doc (4 and a half minutes) 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.

Prefete Duffaut — like most of the artists featured in this exhibit — came from humble origins.  And, like many of his colleagues, he began painting from his rich spiritual imagination — influenced by Christianity and voodou.  He like a number of the other painters his age were discovered by Dewitt Peters who established the Centre D’Arte in Port-au-Prince  in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60s nurturing and selling the works of Haiti’s indigenous and largely untrained talent.   In this mini-doc Duffaut explains that he started painting with shoe polish and guinea hen feathers and he describes the overwhelming joy when he sold his first paintings to Peters.    It was more money than his family had ever seen.  At the time of this production, Duffaut’s  paintings were usually identified by the series of imaginary mountains criss-crossed by roads and a variety of Christian and voodou symbolism. He was also one of the group of first generation naif painters who participated in the painting of the famous murals in Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port-au-Prince.