NO. 10 OF 61
Pluie Torrentielle
Charles Obas (1927–1969)
$9,500
- Medium
- Oil on board
- Size
- 22 × 28 in
- Year
- 1961
- Price
- $9,500
Or email Haitianartdisplay@gmail.com
About the work
Rain falls in long streaks over a shore village. Rainstorms and burdened villagers are recurring subjects in Charles Obas’s work. Here, the downpour gives an ordinary journey the weight of effort. It joins the whole view in one weather, drawing our attention to the persistence of daily life when even a short distance feels difficult to cross.
A woman wades through a flooded path with a head-load. Sailboats lie beyond boulders at the left; two thatched huts stand beneath a palm at the right. A man approaches them, with another figure further away.
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.