Préfète Duffaut

Préfète Duffaut (1923–2012) was one of the leading figures of the Haitian painting movement centred on the Centre d’Art in Port-au-Prince, which he joined in 1948 at the encouragement of the American journalist Bill Kraus, having already caught the attention of the Centre’s founder, DeWitt Peters, a few years earlier. Born in Cyvadier, near Jacmel, he began as a boat-builder alongside his father before turning to painting, and boats and harbours remained a lifelong subject alongside his best-known invention: the ‘imaginary city,’ fantastical hillside towns of winding staircases and radiant, patchwork architecture blending Vodou and Catholic imagery.

In 1950–51 he was one of five Haitian painters — with Castera Bazile, Philomé Obin, Rigaud Benoît and Wilson Bigaud — commissioned to paint the murals of the Cathédrale Sainte-Trinité in Port-au-Prince, contributing ‘The Temptation of Christ’ and ‘The Processional Road’; the cathedral and its murals were destroyed in the 2010 earthquake. His work is held by the Museum of Modern Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Figge Art Museum and the New Orleans Museum of Art, among other collections. He died in Port-au-Prince in 2012.