Préfète Duffaut
Préfète Duffaut was a Haitian painter.Biography
Born in Cyvadier, Sud-Est, near the seaport of Jacmel, where he lived and worked. The painter Pauleus Vital was Duffaut's half-brother, the painter Jean Charles Duffaut is his son. Duffaut's mother died when he was two years old.
Duffaut was one of the painters, alongside important Haitian artists such as Gesner Abelard and Rigaud Benoit, at the Centre d'Art in the Haitian capital. In the early 1950s Duffaut was one of several artists invited to paint murals in the interior of the Cathedral of Sainte Trinité in Port-au-Prince; his works there were titled "The Temptation of Christ" and "The Processional Road".
Duffaut paints in the vernacular style and his oeuvre typically consists of fantastical "imaginary cities", that often contain coastal elements with boats. The cityscapes are strongly influenced by the coastal city of Jacmel. Another recurrent theme, especially in earlier works, is imagery associated with Vodou.
Duffaut's work has been exhibited and collected widely outside of Haiti. His body of paintings continues to be a strong influence on contemporary Haitian artists such as Prince Luc.
