JACQUES ENGUERRAND GOURGUE

(1930 - )

Born in Port-au-Prince, this son of a French psychiatrist and a Haitian mambo or voodoo priestess found his muse while in his teens. By age 17, he joined the Centre d’Art and finished a painting called “The Magic Table” now in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modem Art. Haitian life, folklore and religion are common themes, realized in a dark, rich palette that suggests a shadowy mysticism. Sometimes realistic, sometimes the product of voodoo dreams, the paintings of Gourgue make him one of the country’s foremost artists