NO. 11 OF 61
Conversation
Charles Obas (1927–1969)
$13,500
- Medium
- Oil on board
- Size
- 22 × 42 in
- Year
- 1961
- Price
- $13,500
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About the work
Two men stand close, but a wooden pole divides the space between them. Charles Obas’s work belongs to the tradition of Social Realism. Here, nearness and separation give the meeting its tension. The eye passes from one person to the other, making the conversation felt even though its words remain beyond the picture and its subject stays open.
Thick green, ochre and blue-white strokes shape the figures. One wears a torn shirt; the other leans from a red-framed doorway, eyes lowered and hand raised to his chest. Dark green foliage fills the background.
About the artist
Charles Obas was born in Plaisance, in northern Haiti, on 10 February 1927. He joined the Centre d'Art in the late 1940s and in 1950 left to help form the Foyer des Arts Plastiques. He was also a musician. In 1958 he won first prize in a competition held by Haiti's National Office of Tourism. His paintings often showed rainstorms, villagers bent against the weather, harbors and night scenes in subdued colors. According to a letter from his family published in Le Nouvelliste, he disappeared at the National Palace on 31 October 1969.