In Haiti, cradle of rich visual heritage being reinvented

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Youvensky Despeignes used to spend hours a day at home drawing pencil-and-ink abstractions on cheap notebook paper, his aspirations as a painter frustrated by a lack of opportunities in Haiti where a rich artistic heritage has suffered decades of decline.

[...] the 22-year-old is now a scholarship student at the Centre d’Art in Port-au-Prince, learning to paint from one of Haiti’s most renowned visual artists.

While some thought the twin blows marked the end of the longtime cradle of Haitian artists, a young, energetic team is reviving the center and with it a remarkable heritage of vividly colored paintings, sculptures and other works that earned Haiti an international reputation for raw, imaginative art.

While the reinvented Centre d’Art faces many challenges, its new classes and workshops are attracting dozens of students with a rotating cast of Haitian and foreign teachers.

Monnin, whose family owns a prominent Haitian art gallery, said a resurgence of the center is part of an effort to reclaim the country’s artistic legacy, which contrasts dramatically with its economic impoverishment and recurrent political disorder.

Others work in the artisan industry, producing whimsical items for visitors like metal wall hangings and colorful carvings of animals.

While there were always artists from Haiti’s elite and middle classes at the Centre d’Art, it was Hyppolite and other untrained artists from humble backgrounds whose work was championed by intellectuals and critics in Europe and the United States.

For decades, the popularity of Haitian art was aided by the once-flourishing tourist industry, including cruise ships that docked three times a week in Port-au-Prince’s harbor.

[...] once Haiti began sliding into political dysfunction following the 1986 overthrow of the 28-year Duvalier dictatorship, the local market for paintings and sculpture diminished.