Gérard Fortune — who signs his work exclusively with his surname, Gérard — was born in 1925 (uncertain) in Petionville, Haiti.
He was originally a houngan (Vodou priest) and pastry chef, and he did not start to paint until around 1980. He is completely self-taught. During the late 1980s, Gerard produced thousands of paintings and received international acclaim from art historians, museums, and private collectors around the world. His paintings are imbued with his passion for life and close connections to nature and the gods.
His work appears in most books on Haitian Art. Seldon Rodman, for example, devotes a large fraction of a chapter from “Where Art is Joy – Haitian Art: The First Forty Years” to Gérard, whom he considers to be an expressionist and regards as one of the most imaginative self-taught Haitian painters. Gerard’s work is widely collected and exhibited in Europe and the U.S.
Source: Haitian Art, Where Art is Joy
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