Henry Robert Brésil

[also Henri-Robert Brésil]

(Gonaives, Haiti, 19September 1952 - 1999)

Waterfall with Pool

Acrylicon Canvas
24 x 30 inches, painting
25 x 30.75 inches, simple, raw wood frame

Signed, lower right
POR

Fine and bright condition.

Brésil began to paint as a child or teenager and, showing talent and interesting technique, moved to Port-au-Prince in 1973. He is one of those painters whose luminous work is instantly recognizable with his flowing streams, pools and waterfalls surrounded by meticulous, lush, jungle landscapes of stylized trees and pink flamingos. These scenes often fill the canvas leaving no room for a sky.  He sometimes painted large canvases that are quite breathtaking and monumental.  Though his work is decorative and his themes repetitive, there was, and is, an international demand (resulting in fake Brésils on the market.)

He won the ISPAN-UNESCO Prize in 1981 [Institute for the Safeguarding of the National Patrimony-UNESCO] and had exhibitions in Haiti, Japan, the US, Italy, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, etc. Many newspapers and magazines covered his work including Hostess Magazine, the New York Times and the Miami Herald.

Evidently he became quite eccentric as he got older and was tragically killed in a violent misunderstanding at a market in 1999. His paintings are rare in the market as owners tend to hang onto them. -- John B. Fulling Haitian Art Collection

REFERENCES

Schutt-Ainé, Patricia; Staff of Librairie Au Service de la Culture (1994). Haiti: A BasicReference Book. Miami, Florida: Librairie Au Service de la Culture. p. 109.