Gérard Fortuné

Gerard Fortuné was born on May 2nd in the early 1925 in the Montagne Noire neighborhood above Petionville, Haiti. His mother sold vegetables and his father was in the local police force. As a child he recalls working in his mother’s garden. In the 1970s he did domestic work, including cooking, in the houses of the elite of Petionville and as a pastry chef there. He began to paint in the early 1980's. He is completely self-taught.

 His paintings found a receptive audience among diplomats, journalists and other expatriates in Port-au-Prince, and soon he was taken on by the legendary gallery-owner Issa el-Saieh. Other art

dealers and promoters followed.

 Exhibitions

2012 Kafou: Haiti, Art and Vodou.  Nottingham Contemporary.

Permanent Collections

Ramapo College, New Jersey

The Waterloo Museum of Art, Iowa

The Huntington Museum of Art, West Virginia

The Frost Art Museum, Miami Florida

 Published in

Selden Rodman. Rodman, Where Art is Joy, 1988

Dialogue du Réel et de L’imaginaire (1990)

Island on Fire (Demme, 1997)

Monnin, Gael and Pascale Monnin,2014, Gerard Fortuné, Petioinville, Collection Monnin

May 1990 issue of Art & Antiques magazine

Farquharson, Alex and Leah Gordon Kafou: Haiti, Art and Vodou.  2012. Nottingham Contemporary. Nottingham, England.

2000. Haiti, anges & demons. Paris: Le Halle Saint-Pierre