Hyppolite:
Haitian artist looking for his stateside audience, 60 years later
Henri Christophe, oil on board, circa 1947, Collection of Galerie d’Art Nader/George Nader Jr. (photo courtesy of Greg Svitil, Art Museum of the Americas)
By Rebecca Park,Contributor
Primary colors and the most basic of geometric figures, laid out on flat, hazily painted backgrounds. Images of nature and man, the mystic and the historical. Hector Hyppolite (1894-1948), who seemingly rose out of nowhere in the 1940s and disappeared almost as quickly, transforms these apparently simple conceits into complex works exploring Haiti’s national and cultural heritage at a current exhibit at the Art Museum of the Americas, “Mystical Imagination: The Art of Haitian Master Hector Hyppolite.”
Little known outside Haitian art circles, Hyppolite, who had no formal training, was discovered in the early 1940s when, working as a house painter in Saint-Marc, critic and curator DeWitt Peters took notice of his talent. Fueled by a personal mythology that included voyages in Africa and years as a practicing voodoo priest, he managed to attract all the right kind of attention during his brief career. Famed surrealist André Breton and Cuban painter Wifredo Lam collected his works, and UNESCO mounted an exhibit in Paris in 1947, a year before his death.
Hyppolite’s paintings obsess themselves with Haiti—its history, its landscapes, its spirituality, its mythology—yet they never alienate the foreign viewer. A canvas like Henri Christophe takes a significant figure (one of the leaders during the former colony’s revolution against the French) decked out in symbolic national gear, but Hyppolite still manages to touch a universal chord. Studying his work closer, the viewer discovers an inclusive theatricality that runs through all of Hyppolite’s paintings, absorbing one both in quiet moments and grand drama.
Look at Henri Christophe again. This time, ignore all the national droppings, the flags and such. Instead, allow the vivid palette first to seep into your consciousness, the solid blues and reds unlike anything seen in nature (or many art museums, for that matter). Then there’s the arc of flowers, framing the subject’s face, placing him center stage in his own personal drama where the viewer is the sole privileged spectator. The painting sends the viewer soaring, not on waves of patriotic fervor, but on the wings of color, lifting him into a bold visionary sky.
Unfortunately, the exhibit doesn’t achieve as thorough an intellectual survey as it does artistic. The level of scholarship leaves something to be desired. Few paintings are commented on, leaving the viewer alone to induce his own conclusions about Hyppolite, his methods and his themes. Works often refer to elements of national history and mythology, symbolism that flies over the head of the average visitor, preventing him from realizing a full portrait of the artist’s trajectory. Especially considering the general American ignorance of Haiti, more background on its art, history and traditions would have been appreciated.
Yet it is not often that American audiences have an opportunity to see such a complete presentation of Hyppolite’s works. The small, quiet Museum of the Americas offers an intimate setting to discover the Haitian master, a Gauguin re-invented for a postcolonial world, fascinated with his distinct tropical world yet never falling into easy exoticism.
While at the Museum, be sure to check out the second floor, where the exhibit “Caribbean Perspectives from the Collection” is on display. The range of twentieth-century Caribbean works puts Hyppolite in the context of a rich artistic heritage, encompassing different media and movements. The collection of mid-twentieth century Haitian woodcuts show the linear forms that might have served as inspiration for Hyppolite, while the contemporary works of Mario Benjamin suggest where that tradition is heading.
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