To look into the face of Hector Hyppolite is to look into the tragedies and triumphs of Haitian history.  His finely chiseled features reveal traces of the Taino natives who were the original inhabitants of the Island as well as the pronounced features of the Africans who would come to inherit Haiti. His thin frame, a result of years of hard suffering and gruesome poverty, displays a muscular intensity as well as a certain vulnerability. The deep folds of skin separating his eyebrows suggest a disposition to deep reflection and some mystical orientation. In fact he was a mystic, a Vodou priest, who inherited his know how from his father and grandfather. But he was also a painter, Haiti’s greatest, and one whose work uncovered for Haitians and the world at large, the characters in the mystical world of Haitian Vodou.

Hector Hyppolite was born in 1894. He was a descendant of Vodou priests and was himself a practitioner. His real passion, however, was for the arts and as a young man, he spent his time copying various pictures which he sold to visiting American Marines. In the course of those years he may have been inspired by the coming and goings of Marines or mystically driven to undertake a pilgrimage which would ultimately lead him to Africa.  

(Hector Hyppolite on right)

In 1915, Hector boarded a freight destined for Cuba and worked on the Island’s cane fields for a short time. Not liking the work he and another aspiring artist made their way to Dakar Africa via New York. Once in Africa the two made their way to Ethiopia supporting themselves by painting chamber pots in various hostels and taking in the artistic traditions of the Ethiopians.  The 5 year trek revolutionized Hyppolite’s work.

Hector Hyppolite returned to Haiti in 1920 dead broke. The years that passed between his return and the arrival of DeWitt Peters (American responsible for encouraging and establishing an arts center for Haitian artists as well as introducing Haitian arts to the world) and the subsequent establishment of the Centre D’Art in Port-au-Prince, were spiked with difficulty. The artist supported himself by doing what he had done in Africa; accepting whatever commissions for work were available in order to survive. He painted houses, signs for small shops, ceremonial Vodou gourds, birds on doorways and functional pieces. While these jobs did not pay much, it was one of these well executed paintings that led the American art enthusiast DeWitt Peters to seek him out and eventually help hoist him to the fame he had often envisioned in his mystical dreams.

The artist’s tools were simple. Hyppolite used brushes made of chicken feathers to paint and cardboard boxes for canvas. He lived in a palm thatched hut surrounded by his finished and evolving work. He used house paint for color and strong, untamed strokes to bring his visions to life.

Hyppolite’s paintings unleashed the bold, raw and crude forms of the ruling spirits or “laws” of Vodun as they appeared to him in visions. Damballah, the rain god, Erzulie, the female god of love surrounded by beautiful flowers and parrots, signifiers of her wealth and stature, Baron LaCroix, La Sirene, (half woman half fish), the powerfully evil female Petro spirit Damballah La Flambeau (Damballah the Flame) and many other unconventionally composed representations of Haitian religious figures. His ability to use  the imagery of Vodou in order to communicate its depths, dangers and beauty was one of a kind.

After benefiting financially from the first fruits of the Centre D’Arts efforts in popularizing Haitian art, the artist was allowed by his “lwas” (governing spirits), to enjoy wealth and life for three more short years. In those years he was among the first Haitian artists to enjoy one man exhibits in American and European Museums. His work was not only featured in magazines, and newspapers, but praised by the day’s respected critics and collected by discriminating consumers of fine arts. He used his earning to set up a fishing business and open a small store where he employed his fellow countrymen and sold goods for a modest profit.

Even as a world renowned figure, the artist remained simple in his character and ways. He continued to live in his palm thatch hut without modern embellishments.  A sense of his personality is preserved for us today in the memory of friends who have preserved a few of his thoughts: “I’m always in the mood to paint. It’s because of St. John the Baptist. He inspires me…” or “I’m married you know, to my protective spirit, so I can’t marry anyone else. When I was a child, my grandfather a great priest of Vodou married me to La Sirene…my mystic wife” and “I have three mistresses. That’s not many. Usually, I have seven” and my favorite, “But my new baby, her name signifies love, so when she’s a grown woman and a man calls her by name, he will be saying, you are my love”.

Steve Desrosiers