PRÉFÈTE DUFFAUT
1923-2012
COUP DE FOUDRE - 30 ANS DE PASSION, ESPACE LALLY, HAITIAN AND AFRICAN CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY (BEZIERS) 2020
Indigo Arts Selections: Works from Haiti, Mexico and Cuba, CRANE ARTS CENTER (PHILADELPHIA) 2010
Saving Grace: A celebration of Haitian Art, Affirmation Arts (New York) 2010
Inspiration of Haitian Art, French Institute Gallery (New York) 2009
50th Anniversary of the Gallery Monnin (Petionville) 2006
Winslow Anderson Collection of Haitian Art, Huntington Museum of Art (HUNTINGTON) 2004
Haiti Couleurs, Haiti Douleur, Mediatheque de Nancy (NANCY) 2004
Vaudou, Abbaye de Daoulas (DAOULAS) 2004
Caribbean Art from the World Bank Collection, World Bank (Washington DC) 2002
Two man show with Yves Lafontant, Galerie Monnin (Port au Prince) 1999
(Selected to represent Haiti), United Nations Building (New York) 1997
Island on Fire, exhibition of Jonathan Demme’s collection, Equitable Gallery (NEW YORK) 1997
La Peinture Haitienne a La Rencontre de l'Image d'Epinal (VILLE D'EPINAL) (1992)
La Rencontre Des Deux Mondes Vue Par Les Peintres D'Haiti, TRAVELLING EXHIBITION (Martinique, Seville, Rome, Paris, Nantes, Angouleme, Laval, Toulouse, Japan, Montreal, United States, Mexico) 1992
A Haitian Celebration : Art & Culture, Milwaukee Art Museum (MILWAUKEE) 1992
Spirits. selections from the collection of Geoffrey Holder & Carmen Lavallade, Katonah Museum of Art (New York) 1991
Exposition du Palais du Rhin (Strasbourg) 1990
Mme. Mitterrand, group show and auction (Paris) 1990
Where Art is Joy : 40 years of Haitian Art, Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art (FORT LAUDERDALE) 1989
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris) 1988
Haitian Painting : The Naives & the Moderns, Queens College, CUNY, (New York) 1987
Musée International d'Art Naïf (Nice) 1983
International Art Expo (New York) 1982
Allentown Art Museum (Allentown) 1982
2nd AnnUAl Auction of Afro-American Art with Fine Haitian Paintings, Salmagundi Club, (NEW YORK) 1981
Kunst aus Haiti, Major Haitian art travelLING EXHIBITION, Brooklyn Museum (New York), Milwaukee Art Center (Wisconsin), (Berlin), New Orleans Museum of Art (NEW ORLEANS) 1979
Haiti Folk Art, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquena (San Juan) 1978
Haitian Folk Art, The Brooklyn Museum (New York) 1978
Haiti, the Naïve Tradition, Flagg Tanning Corporation Collection, Milwaukee Art Center (MILWAUKEE) 1974
The Art of Haiti, Davenport Municipal Art Gallery (IOWA) 1974
Haitian Painting: The Naïve Tradition”, American Federation of Arts (New York) 1973
The Haitian Primitivism, Galerie Nader (Port au Prince) 1972
Contemporary Haitian Art, Nader Gallery (Miami) 1971
Art of Haiti and Jamaica, Center for Inter-American Relations (NEW YORK) 1968
“19 Schilders uit Haiti”, Stedelijk Museum, (Amsterdam) 1963
The United States Collects Pan American Art, Art Institute of Chicago (CHICAGO) 1959
Duffaut alongside artists Bigaud and Benoit paint two murals for the Holy Trinity Cathedral, Port au Prince, Haiti, 1951
Winslow Nitza Cavalier & Massalie Widley Galant, Prefete Duffaut revit dans nos ecrits, Éditions Ruptures, 2007
Jonathan Demme, Edwidge Danticat, Pebo Voss, Island On Fire: Passionate Images of Haiti from the Collection of Jonathan Demme, Kaliko Press, Nyack, NY, 1997
Selden Rodman, Where Art is Joy - Haitian Art: The First Forty Years, Ruggles de Latour, New York, 1988
BORN TO A FAMILY OF SHIPBUILDERS, PRÉFÈTE DUFFAUT WAS PERHAPS THE MOST TRANSCENDENT OF THE FIRST WAVE OF HAITIAN ART MAKERS. IT WAS A RELIGIOUS VISION WHICH INSTRUCTED HIM TO DEDICATE HIS LIFE TO THE DECORATION OF HOUSES OF WORSHIP. YET HIS MURALS WERE ATYPICAL FOR THE REGION AND BROUGHT HIM TO THE ATTENTION OF LE CENTRE D’ART. HERE, AMONGST OTHER ARTISTS, HE CONTINUED TO EXPLORE SPIRITUAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS AND BECAME KNOWN FOR HIS PENCIL-THIN FIGURES, IMAGINARY CONSTRUCTIONS AND OFF-CENTRE SYMMETRIES.
ALTHOUGH BEST KNOWN FOR HIS FLOATING LANDSCAPES AND DREAM-STATE DEPICTIONS OF HIS HOMETOWN OF JACMEL, IT IS DUFFAUT’S OFF-KILTER EARLY MATERIAL WHICH REALLY SHOWS HIS LATERAL ABILITIES TO THEIR FULLEST.