HADC is committed to working with partner institutions in Haiti and across the Diaspora to assess their collections and support ongoing digitization efforts. By moving “beyond provenance,” HADC seeks to broaden understanding of Haitian art by incorporating Kreyol language and community knowledge. This initiative aims to uncover and shape new narratives of Haitian artistic production and relies on sustained collaboration with museums, libraries, and cultural organizations.
As part of this work, HADC will partner with the following institutions to digitize nearly 6,000 artworks. At the same time, the project is developing a Kreyol thesaurus for various forms of Haitian art, drawing on the expertise of scholars, cultural practitioners, and the local communities associated with each partner site.
- Le Centre d’Art
- CIDIHCA (Le Centre International de Documentation et D’information Haïtienne, Caribéenne et Afro-Canadienne)
- Figge Art Museum
- Haitian American Museum of Chicago
- Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance
- Haitian Cultural Legacy Collection of New Orleans
- Haitian Studies Institute at Brooklyn College
- Milwaukee Art Museum
- Na-Ri-VéH Ounfò/Voudou Temple
- New Galleries at Ramapo College of New Jersey
- Sant D’A Jakmel
- Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas
- Trinity College Watkinson Library
- University of Virginia Fralin Museum
- Waterloo Center for the Arts
The Centre d’Art is a cultural institution founded in 1944 and recognized as a public utility in 1947, which promotes artistic creation in Haiti. The Centre d’Art is considered a veritable melting pot for the plastic arts in Haiti.
In response to the escalating violence perpetrated by armed gangs in Haiti, the Centre d’Art, with support from the Organization of American States (OAS), is implementing the “Ann Kwape Tout Fòm Vyolans avèk Lakilti” project. This initiative aims to leverage art and culture as powerful tools for reconciliation in the communities most deeply affected.
The country is currently facing a surge of violence that is gradually spreading to multiple regions. Several hubs of artistic creation in the West Department — including Bel-Air, Cité Soleil, Grand-Rue, Croix-des-Bouquets, and Carrefour-Feuilles — have been severely impacted. The Centre d’Art has mobilized to support these artistic communities, though its actions have so far been primarily emergency responses.
This year, with the backing of the OAS, the Centre d’Art is committed to launching long-term initiatives to help rebuild the social fabric torn apart by conflict. These efforts will seek to foster dialogue and solidarity within neighborhoods, drawing on the transformative power of art to promote social cohesion.
The “Ann Kwape Tout Fòm Vyolans avèk Lakilti” project seeks to foster intercommunity dialogue through art and culture. It provides the Centre d’Art with a unique opportunity to play a direct role in violence prevention and the promotion of community dialogue, by working closely with at-risk youth. This includes awareness-raising initiatives through dialogue spaces and access to personal development opportunities through the arts.
The Figge Art Museum is dedicated to bringing art and people together. Located on the Mississippi River in downtown Davenport, Iowa, the Figge is the premier art exhibition and education facility between Chicago and Des Moines. By presenting world-class exhibitions, art classes, lectures, and special events, the museum attracts visitors of all ages.
The Figge is home to an extraordinary art collection, including one of the most significant collections of Haitian art in the United States. In 1967, Dr. Walter E. Neiswanger’s gift of Haitian paintings and sculptures established the collection, which has grown to include a dynamic range of artwork in various mediums and styles. Hector Hyppolite, Wilson Bigaud, Nacius Joseph, Georges Liautaud, Frantz Zéphirin, and Edouard Duval-Carrié are among the artists represented. Through strategic purchases and gifts, including the Figges’ recent acquisition of N’ap naje ansamn, n’ap vole ansamn by contemporary Haitian-American artist Didier William, the collection continues to grow and evolve to include those living in the Haitian Diaspora.
Haitian American Museum of Chicago
The Haitian American Museum of Chicago (HAMOC)’s mission is to promote and preserve Haitian art, culture, history, and community in Chicago and beyond. Since its founding in 2012, the museum has cataloged over 600 artworks by Haitian artists from Haiti and around the world. HAMOC’s collection includes paintings, metalwork, woodwork, textiles, photographs, historical documents, Vodou items, artifacts, and oral histories. As education and accessibility are at the core of the museum, the unique collection is available online and to the public for no cost.
Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance
The Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance (HCAA) is a Miami-based organization dedicated to promoting Afro-Caribbean culture, with a focus on Haiti. HCAA has a rich history of community engagement in Miami through cultural programming and exhibitions. Active for three decades, the organization has no formal documentation of its institutional history. The HADC team will work directly with Executive Director Carle Juste and Founder Edouard Duval-Carrié to inventory and digitize their holdings, including exhibition histories and a collection of historic maps. This includes documenting over 30 exhibitions, including 12 years of the Global Caribbeans exhibition series and works by over one hundred artists.
Haitian Cultural Legacy Collection of New Orleans
The Haitian Cultural Legacy Collection is a privately owned collection of over 400 acrylic, oil, and mixed-media paintings, ironwork, and sculptures by Haitian artists, collected by the late Dr. Jean Chenier Brierre and his wife, Nicole Riboul Brierre. Since the 1940s, Dr. Brierre and his wife have collected works from talented Haitian artists to create a magnificent collection that tells the historical legacy of their home country, Haiti. As avid art lovers who were passionate about their country, they believed that through art, the history and culture of Haiti could be shared with people of all nationalities. New Orleans-based artist and curator Nic Brierre Aziz will provide HADC with access to his family’s prominent collection, currently in storage, as part of plans for a museum of Haitian art. Digitizing the collection during the creation of a museum offers an opportunity to explore and highlight connections between 20th-century and contemporary Haitian art, as well as broader historical connections and heritages to Haiti within New Orleans and Louisiana.
Haitian Studies Institute at Brooklyn College
Founded in 2016, the CUNY Haitian Studies Institute at Brooklyn College is one of the premier academic institutes for Haitian studies. The institute recently received a donation of artworks from the estate of Yvette Feldman, a French/Francophone professor at Columbia University for over 60 years, which included 30 Haitian artworks and her private documents highlighting her relationship with the Haitian art community. The small collection includes paintings by celebrated artists dating back to the 1930s and continuing through the 1990s. The institution plans to restore minimal damage to digitize the items properly. Also, the Program does not have a designated on-campus area where they can permanently display the works to share them with the college and local community. By working with HADC, the Haitian Studies Institute looks to create opportunities for the community to engage with the works and consider how the collection enhances its broader mission.
The collection of Haitian art at the Milwaukee Museum is composed mainly of paintings and sculptures donated by Milwaukee collectors Richard and Erna Flagg in 1991. Three distinct “schools” of Haitian art are represented in the Museum’s collection. The Southern school, based in Port-au-Prince, is represented by Hector Hyppolite, whose subject matter primarily concerns the belief system Vodun. The Northern school is typified by more secular and historic subject matter, seen in the work of Philomé Obin. Lastly, the steel drum sculptures made from recycled oil drums are from the northern Port-au-Prince suburb of Croix-des-Bouquets.
Na-Ri-VéH Ounfò/Voudou Temple, Haiti
The Na-Ri-VéH Ounfò/Voudou Temple is the former family estate of Jean-Daniel Lafontant, located in the John Brown section of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The two-story compound sits on a little over an acre of land on the main street, surrounded by Christian evangelical churches. The Temple was home to a unique collection of over 2,000 contemporary artworks donated by artists and patrons with whom Lafontant has worked over the past 20 years. However, in September 2021, tragedy struck the Temple when a fire destroyed the art collection and a significant portion of the estate. Within the Temple, artistic spaces were found along a long corridor that leads to a patio-covered inner courtyard, the peristil (the sacred spaces used for Vodou ceremonies), and nine sacred chambers dedicated to families of Voudou lwas (deities). Each space was decorated with a mélange of modern and traditional representations of the Vodou lwas. This was the first notable collection in which contemporary art was initiated and used for ceremonial purposes.
From the ashes, a new initiative was born in the redesign of the structure and the collection. This site, which stood for decades as a community center and an informal sanctuary for artists, will now also serve as an incubator for the creative community. Very simply put… this is an opportunity for artists throughout the Diaspora and in Haiti, influenced by Vodou and Haitian culture, to deepen their understanding and contribute to the rebuilding of this site. This initiative develops the praxis of the contemporary narrative of Haitian art through an organic process that connects directly to the source of Haitian and Kreyol inspiration. This reboot will build context through its residency program, which designs and creates a network of new and emerging artists. The HADC team plans to work closely with Mr. Lafontant on considering the role of Haitian art, from the museum and marketplace to places of worship and devotion.
New Galleries at Ramapo College of New Jersey
The Art Galleries at Ramapo College of New Jersey maintains the personal collection of Selden Rodman, a founding co-director of the renowned Centre d’Art, founded in 1945 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Ramapo’s prominent collection of around 350 artworks provides a rubric for reconsidering and decolonizing narratives of Haitian art and for connecting with the Haitian diaspora and Black communities in the tri-state area. We aim to address significant space and capacity concerns and aid in photographing and digitizing artworks. This photograph displays several artworks displayed at The Art Galleries at Ramapo College of New Jersey. The collection of works we will digitize spans scales and formats, including sculpture, painting, and mixed-media works. Currently, the majority of the Haitian art collection is stored in limited facilities adjacent to the galleries in the Berrie Center for Performing and Visual Arts.
Sant d’A Jakmel (Jacmel Arts Center), Haiti
The Sant d’A Jakmel (Jacmel Arts Center) in the southern city of Jacmel was founded in 2003 by a collective of local artists. The center functioned as an academy, community space, and gallery, and is the primary arts center in Jacmel today. Jacmel is a coastal city known for its Carnaval and colonial-era architecture, with its historic center recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Jacmel is also known for its rich traditions in the visual arts and crafts, with many of its painters rising to national and global prominence. The collection of over 400 artworks at Sant d’A highlights the unique painting and artistic traditions of Jacmel, with significant works from contemporary artists. While the 2010 earthquake greatly impacted Jacmel, the center holds strong thanks to committed members of the city’s artist community, who maintain the facilities and programming. Jacmel’s geography, previous organizational leadership, and current limited capacity have prevented the arts center from envisioning the digitization of its collection. Sant d’A Jakmel provides an opportunity to engage Jacmel’s rich artistic community in the midst of, and as a means to inform, our digitization effort.
Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas
The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas (KU) is a non-profit art museum committed to serving communities across Kansas and beyond. The Spencer maintains culturally diverse holdings and invites audiences to explore the intersection of art, ideas, and experience. The Haitian art collection at the Spencer includes over 100 works, most of which were given to the museum by Harry and Mary Lou Vansant Hughes in 2011. After living in Haiti from 1972 to 1976, the Hughes developed a deep appreciation for its art, collecting a variety of works from leading Haitian sculptors and painters such as Rigaud Benoît, Murat Brierre, Célestin Faustin, Jasmin Joseph, Philomé Obin, André Pierre, and Robert St. Brice. These works cover a broad range of styles and themes from historical and religious subjects to scenes of nature and everyday life.
The collection has served as the basis for three exhibitions at the museum, most recently in 2019, with “The Ties that Bind: Haiti, the United States, and the Art of Ulrick Jean-Pierre in Comparative Perspective.” Selected works from the collection are also featured in the museum’s long-term collection galleries. Works from the Mary Lou Vansant Hughes Haitian art collection were exhibited in Haiti, the United States, and Europe before coming to the Spencer, including at the first U.S. exhibition of Haitian art, held at the Brooklyn Museum in 1978.
The Edith A. Graham Collection of Haitian Art was donated to Trinity in 2008 by Graham’s children in honor of the long friendship between their mother and Leslie Desmangles, professor of religious studies and international studies, emeritus.
Born of Graham’s 40-year commitment to Haitian art, the collection includes over 300 objects. The paintings, sculptures, and ceremonial objects evoke a Haiti that exists beyond historical constraints—a Haiti reimagined, where traditions continue to evolve. Henry’s work engages with these legacies, at times echoing them and at other times clashing with, questioning, and reshaping them.
The college also uses the collection to support academic study, host exhibitions, and promote Haitian culture through various events, such as artist residencies and performances by dance companies like Jean Appolon Expressions. This connection reflects a broader institutional interest in Caribbean culture and history, as well as the significance of Haitian art as an essential example of the African diaspora.
University of Virginia Fralin Art Museum
Beverly and John Fox Sullivan collected Haitian art when they first traveled to Haiti in 1977. Over the following decades, they returned more than two dozen times with Eye Care, an organization that acquired works of art from Haitian galleries and artists to sell in the United States. Profits from these sales supported both the artists and the cost of medicines and other needs of seven eye care clinics. The Sullivans became deeply invested in understanding the work and careers of these artists. Over the years, they amassed one of the most representative private collections of Haiti’s modern paintings in the United States. The bulk of this collection has been promised to The Fralin Museum of Art and the University of Virginia, where it will become an invaluable resource for the study of Haitian and Caribbean culture for students, faculty, and the public for years to come.
These paintings tell the history of a country in both monumental and fleeting moments. Faith, fun, labor, and liberation take time. And now is the time to pay attention to the moments that have shaped the extraordinary island nation of Haiti.
The Waterloo Center for the Arts’ purpose is to foster greater awareness, appreciation, and support of the arts among a diverse audience. Located on the banks of the scenic Cedar River in downtown Waterloo, the Center works in partnership with the community to provide cultural experiences for all ages. The Center collects Midwest Art, American Decorative Arts, and International Folk Art, including a significant collection of Mexican Folk Art and the world’s most extensive public collection of Haitian Art. Selections from their collection are always on display. They also feature changing exhibits in five separate galleries throughout the building. From live music concerts, riverside luncheons, film series, and performance art to community events and festivals, the Waterloo Center for the Arts offers a variety of cultural programs and events throughout the year. The Pavilion is an interactive children’s museum featuring over 40 hands-on exhibits for all ages to explore. Milk a life-size cow, drive a tractor through a Grant Wood painting, test your skill at digital finger painting, explore the music, language, and culture of other countries, and more!