Untitled (Boys School) by Yves Lafontant

oil on canvas

In this painting, a large yellow boy’s school occupies a large portion of the canvas. The front yard is filled with young boys in uniforms. Some of the boys appear to be purchasing goods from four different vendors. Three of the boys ride one bicycle in the front right corner of the painting. There is a man standing in front of the school, monitoring the boys’ activity. There is a Haitian flag to the left of the building. In the book Artistes en Haiti, Yves is quoted as saying that to him an artist is part journalist, part psychologist and part ethnologist. Do you think this painting reflects that view? Why or why not?

Artist Bio: Yves Lafontant was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1939. When he was young, his widowed mother married the Haitian master painter Rigaud Benoit so Yves was exposed to high quality art very early in his life. He did his first painting at age twelve and later studied at l'Academie des Artes Plastiques. In 1967 he went to the United States and studied Art and English at Brooklyn College.

Lafontant’s subject matter is Haitian life, spanning the two centuries of Haiti's existence from historical scenes to modern vodou ceremonies.