Juvenal Durosaire

"Village Life, " an Oil on Masonite signed by Juvenal Durosaire

c. 1987

'Blue Landscape' is an original painting by the master of Haitian art Antonio Joseph. In the painting, Joseph works with magic realist themes: The landscape is a deep and saturated blue, with greens and yellows covering the Haitian mountains as they emerge out of the sea. The mountains are likewise dotted with the colorful houses so emblematic of Haitian vernacular architecture. The viewer looks out toward at these features while seemly contained within a set of sea walls. In the immediate foreground, pushed up against the picture plane, a mysterious vine grows out of the hard industrial ground, with nearly a dozen different flowers bursting from the same vine. The impossibility of these flowers perhaps relates the artist's work to the strong Latin American surrealist artists, like Frida Kahlo and Remedios Varo, while also referencing Haitian folk culture and spirituality. caesin on masonite 23.88 x 36 inches, artwork 26.38 x 38.25 inches, frame signed "Antonio Joseph" lower right and dated 53 inscribed "172" in green ink, on reverse, center inscribed "380- 91-150" in white chalk, on reverse, center left inscribed "13" in graphite, on reverse, center right Overall good condition; some dust accumulation to surface; tidemarks on reverse; some scratches and surface losses to vintage frame. Presented in a mid-century modern profile wood moulding with gold leaf bevel and 1-inch linen liner. Antonio Joseph was born on April 15, 1921 in Barahona, Dominican Republic to Haitian parents. In his youth he was trained as a tailor and also attended Varones' "La Escuela Graduata" and studied at the Santa Cecilia Music Academy. When he was seventeen, at the time of the "perejil" massacre where thousands of Haitians were murdered, he was smuggled out of the Dominican Republic with his mother, brother and sister. When he arrived in Haiti, he first lived thanks to the practice of tailoring. In 1944, he was the first student and member registered at the Art Centre upon the official opening of the institution. There he studied geometric design and watercolor with DeWitt Peters, who recognized his potential as the Centre's first "discovery" and an asset to the nascent institution. He also practiced sculpture with Jason Seley, ceramics with Edith Wegard, and silkscreen printing with Franck Jacobson. He learned the first notions of composition and perspective with the French sculptor Pierre Bourdelle, who came to Haiti to oversee the creation of the murals of the Cité de l'Exposition in Port-au-Prince. From 1945 to 1949, he worked with Bourdelle on the enormous state-funded project, conceived as part of the festivities commemorating the bicentenary of the founding of the city of Port-au-Prince. In 1952, Paul Keene, an artist from Philadelphia taught and exhibited at the Art Center. While there, he passed on to Antonio Joseph the techniques of casein painting, which combine the virtuosity of oil painting with the possibilities of watercolor. This discovery was instrumental in Antonio Joseph’s career, and he then entered an intense production phase. He at that time produced a series of paintings for which, in 1953, the Guggenheim Foundation awarded him a prestigious research and development grant. He was the first Haitian artist to receive this scholarship in the field of "creative painting...

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