This report appeared in Défend Haiti. Follow link below for the original report and a gallery of Duffaut’s work.

A world renowned Haitian artist, whose work appears in the capital halls of many countries around the world, including the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., Préfète Duffaut (1923-2012) had his body laid to rest on Saturday in the presence of many artists and keepers of the Haitian culture.

The funeral one of the “last giants of the arts” in Haiti was held at the Church of King St. Louis of France where Father Lanex Phanor, was spoke of the deceased, saying “the death of a baptized is not an end but a passage.”

Present was the Director of the Museum of the National Pantheon (MUPANAH), Michèle Gardère Frisch, and painter Philippe Dodard, director of the National School of Arts (ENARTS), who for their part, both praised the exceptional originality of the work of Duffaut and stressed that his design geometrized, lively and urban made him one of the most popular Haitian artists internationally.

Indignant, Dr. Frantz Large, one who was very close to the deceased, attacked the Martelly/Lamothe administration for not affording Duffaut a state funeral, for what Large believed for a person who gave much to the country.

But the absence of any official ceremony was compensated by the mobilization of several high personalities of the are work including the art dealer, Joseph Casimir Mireille Perodin Jerome, wife of the late painter Jean-Rene Jerome.

Duffaut’s decor, colors and his own imagination were indeed present for the final lap of the gentleman artist whose body was placed in a coffin painted by younger colleagues.

The original coffin that the 80 year old designed for himself fifteen years ago, in 1998, had disappeared in the devastating earthquake of 2010, Dupré his son said. Taking one of the legends that have marked the course of the meteoric character, ill also indicated that it was in a dream that Our Lady of Lourdes, told his father as a carpenter’s mission to “paint the town of Jacmel”.

The indefatigable artist was laid to rest near the metropolis of the south-east, Cyvadier, the place where, on 1 January 1923, he as born.

For the original report go to http://www.defend.ht/entertainment/articles/art/3446-prefete-duffaut-1923-2012-laid-to-rest