Indigo Arts Gallery and lovers of Cuban art mourn the passing of José de Jesus Garcia Montebravo. Montebravo was one of Cuba's leading self-taught artists, with a worldwide following. While he was self-taught as an artist, he was hardly naive in the English sense of the word. He was a witty and sophisticated man, with a sure, fluid line in pen or brush.

He was a university graduate, who was for many years a professor of geography at the Villa Clara Superior Pedagogical Institute. Though he had painted since he was a child, Montebravo began to paint seriously in 1980 and had his first solo exhibition in 1984. He lived throughout his career in the town of Cienfuegos, where he was a leading member of the art community. He was an enthusiastic mentor to many younger artists. He exhibited individually and collectively, in Europe and the United States as well as in Cuba. Montebravo was featured in a 2001 article by Joan Pearlman in the Folk Art Messenger, and there was a chapter on his work in Gerald Mouial's 2004 book, Magic Art in Cuba.

Monte was featured in many exhibits at Indigo Arts Gallery between 1999 and 2010. In 2002 we were able to host his visit to our Philadelphia gallery. In the course of one day at Indigo Arts he painted the Infanta de Filadelphia.

Monte fell ill in September 2009, and passed away on July 9th, 2010. An obituary was published in the July 14th edition of the Cuban newspaper, Granma.

Monte was a dear friend and an inspiring artist. We shall all miss him.

Tony Fisher
Indigo Arts Gallery

Indigo Arts Gallery and art dealer Frank Giannetta are pleased to present the first US exhibit by Haitian master painter Frantz Zephirin since the January 12th, 2010 earthquake.

Frantz Zephirin is one of the leading contemporary artists working in Haiti today. A self-taught artist born in Cap Haitien in 1968, Zephirin has variously been described as a visionary, a surrealist, a visual satirist and an “historic animalist”. His work has been featured in museums and galleries around the world.

After a very close call with the earthquake Zephirin immediately went back to work recording his visions of a violently transformed world. His painting, “The Resurrection of the Dead “ was the arresting image chosen for the January 25th cover of the New Yorker magazine. Since the earthquake Zephirin has been featured in stories in the New York Times, Le Monde, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Times of London, the Guardian and the BBC - website and broadcast. During March through May, 2010, Zephirin has been exhibiting his work in the exhibit Haiti Art Naif: Memories of Paradise? at the art center Denkmalschmiede Hofgen in Gimma, Saxony, Germany. A portion of the sales of Zephirin’s work will be donated to Haitian earthquake relief.

For a June 3rd, 2010 article about Frantz Zephirin and this exhibit click here.
For a June 6th, 2010 review of this exhibit click here.
Artist and critic Andre Juste has also written Frantz Zéphirin’s Paradise of the Mind, a perceptive critical piece on Frantz Zephirin for the June 11th, 2010 issue of Haiti Liberté.

Exhibit dates: Thursday, May 13 through Saturday, June 19
Opening reception: Second Thursdays, May 13, 6 to 9pm.
Reception for the Artist: Saturday, May 15, 2 to 6pm.

New Book and New Work

Congratulations to Nigerian painter Prince Twins Seven-Seven on the publication of the new book on his life and work: Prince Twins Seven-Seven: His Art, His Life in Nigeria, His Exile in America written by eminent scholar Henry Glassie. Copies of this comprehensive work are available at our Twins Seven-Seven gallery website. We have also recently acquired a number of recent paintings by this important artist.

The Blessed Family
Twins Seven-Seven (1944 -), Oshogbo, Nigeria
2006

Indigo Arts is continuing in its efforts at raising money for relief and reconstruction in Haiti.  Thanks to all of you for your generous contributions!

We are responding to this disaster in two ways. The first is directed at the current catastrophe. We are supporting, and urge our friends and customers to support one or more of the relief and development groups working in Haiti: Doctors Without Borders, Partners in Health, Unicef, Catholic Relief Services, Konbit Pou Ayiti, Fonkoze, the Albert Schweitzer Hospital, are some that come to mind. Please send them Money! We are also encouraging you to contribute to an excellent organization in Jacmel, Haiti, the Art Creation Foundation for Children. You can learn more about them below. There is also an excellent list of small organizations which are doing good work in Haiti on Bill Bollendorf's Galerie Macondo website.

The second is directed to Haiti's future, through the creation of a Haitian Artists' Relief Fund. The people that we know the best are the artists and craftspeople of Haiti. As a first step to helping the artists and their families we established a Haitian Artists' Relief Fund in cooperation with artist and musician Nancy Josephson, author of the book Spirits in Sequins: Vodou Flags of Haiti, and founder of The Angel Band. We were joined by Ted Frankel owner of SIDESHOW, the store at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. We put a number of Haitian vodou flags and other artworks for sale on our site and in the gallery. 100% of the proceeds are going to the artists, to help in their recovery from this disaster. The works we are offering for sale are shown here and on the Haitian Artists' Relief Fund page. We are proud to report that this effort has raised over $30,000!  The proceeds are being distributed directly to artists in Haiti who have lost their homes, their artwork and supplies and many of their family members.  Nancy is directing the delivery and distribution of 1200 pounds of beads and sequins directly to the vodou flag artists, so that they may begin to produce their artwork and feed their families once again.

During January and February we also donated 20% of the sales of all other Haitian art - paintings, vodou flags and sculpture to the Haitian relief funds above.

We are also selling wonderful papier maché bird and fish ornaments made by (and for the benefit of) the children of the Art Creation Foundation for Children, in Jacmel, Haiti.

Our March 5th exhibit and silent auction of photographs of Haiti by Phyllis Galembo and other prominent photographers, raised about $1500 for a Partners in Health fund to provide tents for earthquake survivors.

Upcoming projects include the loan of works to Haiti: A Tribute in Art an exhibit at the Delaware Art Museum, May 8th to July 11th, 2010, and a June fund-raiser for the self-help projects of the Peasant Association of Fondwa, Haiti at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown.

You can read an article about our Haitian fundraising efforts here.


Timoun
Children of the Grand Rue, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, November, 2009

Recent articles in the Smithsonian Magazine -
The Art of Resilience
(by Bill Brubaker - September 2010),
the Wall Street Journal -
The New Realities of Haitian Painting
(by Miriam Jordan - March 27, 2010)
and the New York Times -
Out of Ruin, Haiti’s Visionaries
(by Holland Cotter - March 13, 2010)

The Smithsonian article describes the effect of the earthquake on Haiti's cultural resources, including the destruction of the Centre d'Art, the Musée Nader, and the Cathedral Sainte Trinité, as well as the restoration efforts by conservators from the Smithsonian Institution. It also looks at the plight of Haiti's artists, including profiles of Prefete Duffaut, Frantz Zephirin, Nacius Joseph and others. The painting on the cover is by Frantz Zephirin.

The Wall Street Journal article focuses on the carnival mask-makers and painters of Jacmel, particularly Onel Bazelais, and the children of the Art Creation Foundation for Children. The article cites Indigo Arts Gallery, as well as the Hector Hyppolite retrospective, now at the Ramapo College Art Gallery.

The New York Times article describes the raw, vodou-infused art of the Gran Rue artists, the Atis Resistans, such as André Eugène, Jean Hérard Celeur and Guyodo, as well as painter Frantz Zephirin, mask-maker Didier Civil and flag-maker Myrlande Constant.

Indigo Arts has just received two new books on a favorite kind of African art - the art of the sign-painter. African Signs by a graphic designer and curator in the Netherlands, features not just hair-dressing and barbershop signs but signs which promote or address food, fashion, transport, health and sexual dysfunction. It includes a number of photographs by Indigo Arts director Tony Fisher. Joe's Hair That Talks: The Vibrant Sign Culture of Ghana ia a very entertaining look at that country's sign art, put together by volunteers for Women in Progress, an NGO started by former Peace Corps volunteers.

A silent auction benefit for Haitian Earthquake Relief took place at Indigo Arts Gallery in Philadelphia to coincide with the Society for Photographic Education conference, on Friday, March 5, 2010, from 6 to 9pm.

Noted photographer Phyllis Galembo enlisted the help of many of her colleagues in mounting this exhibition and silent auction of photographs taken in Haiti.

The list of photographers participating included:
Andrea Baldeck, Bill Bollendorf, Christian Cravo, Anthony Fisher, James Fischetti, Phyllis Galembo, Leah Gordon, Joanne Leonard, Benjamin Lowy, Daniel Morel, James Nachtwey, Stuart Rome, Maggie Steber and Lynne Warberg. Thank you to all who participated!

This was a rare opportunity to see and purchase original artworks by a group of distinguished photographers while helping to house survivors of the Haitian earthquake.

100% of the proceeds raised were donated to Partners in Health to provide needed tents for artists who have been left homeless by the devastating earthquake. If you missed the auction you may donate by going directly to their website.

The distinguished history of printmaking in Mexico is best represented today in the vibrant art center of Oaxaca. Grabados de Oaxaca includes works by Fernando Andriacci, Enrique Flores, Abelardo Lopez, Eddie Martinez, Leovigildo Martinez, Felipe Morales, Rodolfo Morales, Fernando Olivera, Shinzaburo Takeda, Crispin Valladares & others.
An Independent project of the city-wide celebration of print-making, Philagrafika 2010

Show dates: Thursday, March 11 through Saturday, May 8
Opening receptions: Second Thursdays, March 11 and April 8th, 6 to 9pm.

Also:

African Vessels

Traditional Ceramic Vessels from Africa. Works from Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, and South Africa by Bamana, Bozo, Lobi, Nupe and Zulu artists.

African Vessels is an independent exhibition in support of NCECA 44, the 44th National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts conference, coordinated by the Clay Studio.

Show dates: Thursday, March 11 through Saturday, May 8

Gallery Hours: Wednesday through Saturday, 12 to 6pm.
Location: Indigo Arts Gallery

Read an excellent article on the state of Haiti's art following the Jan. 12th, 2010 earthquake in the March 18, 2010 New York Times: Out of Ruin, Haiti's Visionaries. It focuses particularly on the Gran Rue Artists, such as Eugene, Celeur and Guyodo.

Inauguration Day

Wilson Bigaud, one of the last giants of the first generation of Haitian painters, died in Petit-Goâve, Haiti, on March 22.
Celebrated Haitian artist Wilson Bigaud, one of the great masters of Haitian painting, died at the age of 85 in his home in Vialet, a community in Petit-Goâve, 68km south-west of Port-au-Prince, where he had spent the last 55 years of his life, as Radio Kiskeya reports. Bigaud, who had had eye surgery recently, had ceased painting last summer.
Bigaud was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. His date of birth remains unclear, as it is variously reported as January 1920, 1930, and 1931. His family stated that he was 85 at the time of his death. At age 18, he met Dewitt Peters and joined the Centre d’Art. From the first his drawings were densely detailed. Working towards a mastery of color as well as an illusion of volume modeled in light and dark, Bigaud demonstrated a mature command of his art in the great Terrestrial Paradise (1952), painted when he was just 21. Paradise won second prize in an international art exhibit in Washington, D.C. and was subsequently purchased for the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York along with works by Gourgue, Philomé Obin and Georges Liautaud. In 1951 he was one of the handful of artists chosen to execute the landmark murals in the Episcopal Cathedral of Sainte Trinité, which were destroyed in the January 12 earthquake. His masterpiece in Ste Trinité Episcopal Cathedral in Port-au-Prince, the Marriage at Cana, anthologizes many of the themes he had treated previously and introduces numerous details of Vodou ritual into the Christian subject. He has been called a popular realist, as he delighted in the festivals of carnival and Rara, representing them in full action and colorful detail. His Self-portrait in the Carnival Costume of the Fancy Indian demonstrates his love for lush detail and the golden colors that suffuse many of his paintings. His genre scenes are material rather than dreamlike, solid and respectful of the limitations of naturalism. The ritual and mystery of Vodou are presented as he observed them in reality.
In 1957 Bigaud sank into a deep depression and did not paint again until 1962. Some say that he never regained his early brilliance but there are few artists in Haiti or anywhere else who were as able to communicate the subtleties of their culture with brush on canvas. His paintings are an integral part of the best collections of Haitian art around the world.
Bigaud suffered from severe depression for most of his life, which caused him to cease painting almost entirely for many years. Dewitt Peters, founder of the Centre d’Art, described Bigaud as “obsessed by the fear of losing his gift,” and the artist’s friends believed that he had made a pact with a houngan – a voodoo priest – to preserve his talent. Bigaud remained without question one of the major figures of Haitian painting.
With Bigaud’s death, Radio Kiskeya expressed, Haitian painting has lost one of its greatest artists, joining other internationally-known artists who have died recently, such as André Pierre, Gesner Armand, Néhémy Jean, Louisiane St-Fleurant et Alix Roy (who died in the earthquake).
For more (in French) go to http://www.radiokiskeya.com/spip.php?article6652

Huichol Artist/Shaman José Benitez Sanchez (photo courtesy of Enrique Peraza).

José Benitez Sanchez was born in 1938 in the settlement of San Pablo, where his father was a famous mara’akáme. Benitez credits his own path as a shaman to a revelation following an illness when he was fifteen, after which he set off on his first pilgrimage to Wirikuta. Benitez pursued the dual paths of shaman and artist almost from the start, and has been recognized as a master since the 1970’s. He pioneered a style of fluid figures in compositons which are dynamic, complex, and colorful to the point of being psychedelic. His success as an artist coincided with his growing stature in his own community. He helped found the indigenous community of Tsitákua, and was elected its first tatoani, or governor. Benitez’ work has been exhibited world-wide, and is included in many private and public collections. In addition to the substantial collection which was exhibited at the University of Pennsylvania his work is included in the collection at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

Ralph Hart Fisher and family. Ethiopia, 1958
Photo by Ralph Fisher

Ralph Hart Fisher and family. Ethiopia, 1958
Photo by Ralph Fisher

His work in our country's foreign aid program - from Point Four to the Agency for International Development - brought him and his family to live in Korea, Ethiopia, Southern Rhodesia, Nyasaland and Uganda.

He was assigned to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1957. “We knew little about Ethiopia except that Haile Selassie was emperor, the capital was at 10,000 feet, and the culture was feudal and 19th century,” he recalled. The family thrived in the challenging conditions. Whenever Ralph was assigned to inspect a dam, an agricultural college or a coffee cooperative they joined him on “safari” to the most remote corners of the country. Ralph used his camera to document his travels.

From his years of living in Asia and Africa, Ralph became an enthusiastic and discerning collector of art. He was a major inspiration to the collection which has become Indigo Arts. There is no doubt that Indigo Arts would not exist without his support over the last 22 years.

Thanks, Dad.