Préfète Duffaut
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Rarely does an artwork surface pack this much pictorial inventiveness.
"Reine Des Esprits"
is one such emotionally charged work. It depicts a Haitian Vodou
ritual with potent forces at work. It's constructed around a symmetrical
composition featuring the Queen of the Spirits in ceremony, set in a
complex fantastical landscape. Although a lesser-known Surrealist
Artist, Duffaut's Reine Des Esprits stands toe to toe with the great
European Surrealist painters; here, he creates a world filled with
symbols and meaning built around his unique visual vocabulary. At the
top center, Reine Des Esprits stands in a Christ pose, arms
outstretched, receiving ant-like people who climb a rope toward their
spiritual, divine destiny. Her dress is composed of alternating white
and red pointillist dots that evoke the cosmos. At the bottom, a
four-eyed, bearded devil shoots ray-gun lines of blood from his eyes,
striking the ground. Tambour drums and silhouetted half-moon faces flank
him. The base consists of ceremonial bottles, lit candles, and
offerings evenly spaced on flat ground. Graphically, the work has the
distinctive style of Duffaut, but one could make comparisons to the naive
British painter L. S. Lowry "matchstick men" and other European
Surrealist painters such as Miró, who also used flat shapes and bold,
evocative color, depicting objects steeped in symbolism.
Signed,
and dated in the lower center. Prefete Duffaut, 82, Reine Des Esprits
Provenance: Georges Nader, Collection Mark Seidenfeld, New York. Duffaut
in Select Museum Collections: MoMA, NY , Milwaukee Art Museum and
others