Ville Imaginaire

Prefete Duffaut, born on January 1, 1923 in Jacmel , inherited his father's trade of shipbuilding. Duffaut had a vision of the Virgin Mary, who asked him to decorate the walls of the local Catholic Church, Notre Dame de Lourdes, with her image, which he did. Upon his return to Jacmel, William Krauss, an American journalist living there, saw some of his drawings and encouraged him to make some paintings on masonite and send them to DeWitt Peters. Duffaut was invited to join the Centre d'Art in 1948. Duffaut donated the art pieces “The Streets of Jacmel” and the “Temptation of Christ” to the Episcopal Cathedral of Sainte Trinité in Port-Au-Prince. He was the first prize winner at the 1966 Festival des Artes Negres held in Dakar, Senegal. Duffaut's works are included in the permanent collections of the Davenport Museum of Art in Iowa, the Waterloo Museum of Art in Iowa, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the New Orleans Museum of art, the Ramapo College in New Jersey, and theMusee d'Art du college Saint Pierre in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. On January 2000, Haiti's President Rene Preval, presented Duffaut with a lifetime award for his outstanding contribution to the art world. He is one of the few artists in Haiti to develop a style so original as to be recognized on sight. One of his paintings was amongst Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis collection. It was sold for $6900 by Sotheby's on April 25, 1996.