Haitian Beatz

Rigaud Benoit (1911 – 1986) had become, well before his death, one of the three or four most highly prized Haitian artists.

A native of Port-au-Prince, Benoit had been a shoemaker, musician, and taxi driver before making his living as a painter. He had also supplemented his income by painting pottery, pieces he rarely signed or acknowledged.

Benoit was an early member of the Haïtian art movement known as Naive Art, so-called because of its members' limited formal training. The movement was first recognized and promoted by the Centre d'Art, founded in 1944 by the American Quaker and World War II conscientious objector Dewitt Peters.

According to a widely repeated story, Benoit was working as Peters's chauffeur in 1944 when he saw some of the first works displayed at the Centre d'Art. He immediately decided he could do as well as any of the featured artists. Late in life Benoit denied that tale, insisting that he had merely visited the Centre out of curiosity before submitting his first works to Peters. His paintings were immediately among the Centre's most popular.

In the early 1950s Benoit was one of a handful of artists asked to decorate the interior of the Cathedral of Sainte Trinité; his great mural, Nativity, stands above the high altar. (The Catholic archbishop had -- to his subsequent regret -- denied permission for "mere Haitians" to decorate the Roman cathedral. The Episcopal bishop eagerly consented to the project. On seeing the result he exclaimed "Thank God!, they painted Haitians.")

Some of Benoit's later work was surrealist, though he continued to produce scenes of Haitian life -- narrative scenes -- until his death.