Wilson Bigaud: Life on the Edge 1
Larry Kent
Wilson Bigaud was born in 1928 in
Vialet, a small village on the southern peninsula of Haiti, not far from Petit
Goave and about 45 miles from the capital, Port au Prince. His wife, Cloudette
Ambrose, called "Cocot," was known as a "mambo" or
priestess in Haitian vodou. They had two daughters who still live in Haiti and
four sons who emigrated to the United States.
Before he was 18 years old, Bigaud
was named as one of the Fab 5 group of artists who were commissioned to paint
the murals for the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port au Prince. These murals were
famous for depicting biblical stories with all black figures. But, in 2010, the
Cathedral collapsed during a devastating earthquake. The murals were totally
destroyed.
At age 14, Bigaud showed an innate
talent as a naif artist with no training. Three years later, he was knocking on
the door of the famous Hector Hyppolite, called the father of Haitian naif
painting. In 1945, Andre Breton and Cuban painter Wilfredo Lam purchased
several paintings by Hector Hyppolite from Le Centre d'Art. Breton championed
Hyppolite internationally and arranged for an exhibition of his work. Haitian
art was beginning to become recognized. However, travel to Haiti was still
difficult after World War II, and tourism was in its early stages.
Bigaud lived only a block from
Hyppolite, so the great artist was accessible and subsequently became Bigaud's
mentor and friend. Bigaud's first paintings had a rudimentary quality. He
painted scenes of everyday peasant life and of vodou ceremonies—things that he
knew best. But after three years, he developed into an accomplished painter
with a unique style and technique.
Hyppolite took Bigaud to Le Centre
d'Art in Port au Prince, where he was able to refine his abilities. There
academic and self-taught artists worked side by side. Bigaud worked primarily
on his own but he did receive encouragement from Maurice Borno, a trained
artist. By age 18, Bigaud had many
achievements as an artist. His painting, Earthly Paradise, won a prize at an
international exhibition in Washington, D.C., and was purchased by the Museum
of Modern Art in New York. His commissioned murals in the Holy Trinity
Cathedral were featured in several magazines. His work also was shown in
Amsterdam and Los Angeles in two traveling exhibitions.
In 1951, there were no commercial
galleries in Haiti, and collectors of Haitian art had to travel to Le Centre
d'Art to purchase Bigaud's work. However, according to Bigaud's family, around
that time "his mind started to slip."
In the period from 1951 to 1954, Bigaud continued to paint and produced
several small but very fine paintings. His themes included Carnivale, zombies
in graveyards, peasant life and ceremonies of animal sacrifice.
In 1955, Bigaud returned home to
Vialet, where he continued to paint actively day and night. His son, Buchara,
said that Bigaud could finish two or three paintings in a week. He liked to
paint both inside his home and outside in the shade. Two years later, Bigaud executed a large
painting, Conflicts and Tensions, which possibly portrayed what the artist was
struggling with internally— severe depression. Director of the Centre d'Art
Dewitt Peters called this painting "Haiti's masterpiece of the era."
After 1959, Bigaud stopped painting
for a few years, and it is not known if he sought treatment even though there
was a sanitarium in Vialet. By 1963,
Bigaud had started painting again and briefly experimented with watercolors.
His trademark shadows and stylized figures were reduced to quick brush strokes.
Around 1965, he reverted to using oils on boards, but his greatness had passed
him by. He attempted to return to his old form but he could not reach his
mastery of the 1950s. Wilson Bigaud died in 2010, leaving behind the legacy of
his paintings.
1. Kent, Larry. Folk Art Messenger No. 89, Vol. 26, No. 2, Fall / Winter 2015. Print.
