About the Artist
Gabriel Bien-Aimé was born in 1951 in the village of Croix des Bouquets, now known as the “cradle of 20th century Haitian metal sculpture”. Croix des Bouquets nurtured such great Haitian sculptors as the late Georges Liautaud and Murat Brierre, the brothers Louisjuste, and Serge Jolimeau. Bien-Aimé worked as an auto mechanic for several years before apprenticing to sculptor Janvier Louis-Juste. Working on his own, he has become one of Haiti’s two leading sculptors. Bien-Aimé’s work has been exhibited internationally, notably in the groundbreaking 1989 show at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Magiciens de la Terre, and the Picasso Primitif show at the Museé du Quai Branly -Jacques Chirac, Paris in 2017. His work is also featured in the exhibition, The Enduring Spirit of Haitian Metal Sculpture at the SFO Museum in San Francisco, CA from August 2023 to August 2024.
His works are in the permanent collections of the Centre Pompidou, the Musée du Quai Branly, the Musée National d’Art Moderne de Paris, the Waterloo Museum, the Figge Art Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, The Ramapo College Art Gallery, Le Centre d’Art, and the Musée d’Art Haïtien du Collège Saint-Pierre.
His work is published in Where Art is Joy (Rodman, 1988), Forgerons du Vodou/ Voodoo Blacksmiths (Foubert, 1990), Magiciens de la Terre and A Haitian Celebration: Art and Culture (Stebich, 1992).
