GERARD VALCIN

(1923 -1988)

A tile-setter in his first profession, Gerard Valcin only had three years of school because his parents couldn't afford tuition. He became a painter, creating symmetrical compositions and precisely patterned fields and floors for his subjects, reflecting the exactitude of his former job. With encouragement from DeWitt Peters, director of the Centre d’Art, Valcin portrays voodoo ceremonies that honor a pantheon of gods including Erzulie Freda (see cover), La Sirene and Agoue. He also depicts country life. Valcin’s coumbite paintings of men tilling fields have an energy and rhythm dependent on repeated lines and multiple figures, like mirror images of each other.