Robert Saint-Brice (Haitian, 1898-1973)

Robert Saint-Brice was born in Pétion-Ville, Haiti, on August 29, 1898, and died on August 20, 1973. Unable to read or write, and long before he became an artist, Saint-Brice worked in many modest jobs—including shopkeeper, cook, peddler, and court messenger—to make ends meet. His artistic career started unexpectedly in his fifties when he met the American artist Alex H. John. Impressed by Saint-Brice’s early paintings, John showed them to DeWitt Peters in 1949, opening the doors of the Centre d’Art to him. Saint-Brice’s rise happened quickly. In 1955, the Flagg Tanning Corporation Collection purchased three of his paintings, and by 1960, he had his first solo show in New York. Haitian intellectuals of that era admired him as one of the country’s top “primitives”—a leading figure in Haiti’s early modern art movement. Saint-Brice, a practicing Vodou priest, created semi-abstract but clearly figurative works inspired by spiritual visions. He often said that his ideas came to him in dreams as messages from ancestral spirits. The number three appears repeatedly in his compositions, a symbolic structure he referred to mysteriously when explaining his creative process. His paintings challenged expectations. As Gérald Alexis notes in Peintres Haïtiens, “Saint-Brice’s paintings disturbed art critics in the early 1950s, who were accustomed to the descriptive realism of Haitian folk painters.” His bold, visionary imagery offered something radically different—an interior, mystical expression deeply rooted in Vodou cosmology. Today, Saint-Brice is recognized as one of the leading spiritual painters of Haiti’s mid-20th-century art movement. His distinctive style continues to enchant collectors and scholars worldwide. Scroll Down to Make Your Selection (s)!