In Hyppolite’s Traces: Haitian Folk Painting Between Religion and Art

Abstract

This article, based on an ethnography with historical documents, seeks to reflect on the construction practices of the so-called “popular art” in Haiti in the mid-20th century. To this end, it follows the creation and the first years of operation of the Center d’Art, a center for the production and dissemination of Haitian plastic arts created in 1944, and the circulation of its first exhibitions abroad. Particular emphasis is given to the narrative articulated by the institution around the celebrated painter and voodoo priest Hector Hyppolite (1894-1948), who, i argue, is himself regarded as a kind of circulating artifact. The work and the very figure of Hyppolite function as well as the condensed image of a “popular Haiti” that was wanted to be projected at that moment, marked by its African roots expressed both in the religious and artistic fields.