RIDGE ART MOUNTS SHOW AT OAK PARK VILLAGE HALL

     At the request of the Oak Park Area Arts Council we have hung a small show of Haitian art in the gallery at the Oak Park Village Hall, 123 Madison Street, Oak Park, IL. The show will be up through February 28 to coincide with African American History Month. Village hall is open from 8:30 - 5:00 Monday through Friday. A reception for the gallery and a sale of Haitian art will be held on Friday, February 18, at 7:00 in Village Hall sponsored by the arts council and the West Town chapter of Links, an African-American women's service organization.

BOURMOND BYRON (1920?-2004)

     Byron has been called the most romantic of the naïve Haitian painters. Before he became a painter, he worked as a carpenter and ship builder, but a 1948 visit to the Centre d'Art convinced him to take up painting. He joined the Centre d'Art in 1955 but spent most of his time in a small village in southwestern Haiti located between Jacmel and Les Cayes. He came to Port-au-Prince only to do business with the galleries.  

     He was an ardent Vodouist and depicted many ceremonies in his work in addition to scenes of Haitian rural life. His use of blue-green colors creates a suffused light resulting in a general sense of something magical in his works. Like many naïve artists most of his paintings are organized symmetrically.   

     His work has been shown in France, Canada and the US. He is included in the permanent collections of the Milwaukee Museum of Art in Wisconsin and the Waterloo Center for the Arts in Iowa. His early pieces are quite rare. The two paintings on our site date from the mid 80's and were purchased at the Centre d'Art.