ART : Haitian Art Finds a Home at Galerie Lakaye

One of Carine Fabius’ most vivid childhood memories of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is of being whisked in a limousine with her mother to the palace of dictator Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier.

“My mother was the hottest fashion designer in Haiti,” said Fabius. Papa Doc often hired her mother to make clothes for Duvalier’s wife and daughter, she said.

Fabius also remembers being awakened one night as a dozen of Papa Doc’s guards searched her family’s house for one of her father’s friends, an outspoken critic of the Haitian dictator.

That incident, and the general climate of violence in Haiti at the time, prompted her father to get visas for the family and leave in 1964 for the United States.

Fabius has lived in this country ever since, but Haiti remains close to her heart. For the past three years, she and her husband, Pascal Giacomini, a French-born sculptor, have been co-owners of Galerie Lakaye, a gallery specializing in Haitian art.

Located in the couple’s Craftsman-style house in West Hollywood, the gallery has served as a home away from home for Haitian artists, while exposing Angelenos to the rich art of Haiti. Virtually all of the house’s wall space is covered with Haitian paintings, their canvases alive with dazzling colors.

Wire and tin sculptures abound throughout the house, resting on shelves and tables and hanging from walls. Several depict mermaids with wings and halos--a Haitian fertility symbol.

Some of the artworks have political themes, but most depict visions of plenty--such as bountiful harvests of brightly colored fruit or families living together in a happy, peaceful land--a sharp contrast to the realities of present-day Haiti.

“Most Haitian artists paint their hopes, their dreams,” Fabius said.

Galerie Lakaye, Creole for “gallery from back home,” is among a few galleries in Los Angeles specializing in Haitian art. Prices range from $700 to $2,000 for oil paintings and sculptures. Fabius said the gallery also sells folk art, posters and the work of artists from African countries, Brazil and several Caribbean islands.

Edouard Duval Carrie, a Haitian artist who lives in Miami and has shown his work in Paris, Cologne and Washington, D.C., said Galerie Lakaye is “one of the more important galleries in the United States representing Haitian art.”

Carrie said that there are Haitian art galleries in New York and Miami, but he prefers to deal with Fabius because “Carine respects the artists and she wants to present the work in the best possible way. The others just try to peddle the art.”

The artist is impressed with Fabius’ efforts to educate the public about Haitian culture.

“She’ll organize a book reading or invite a speaker, and host an event which draws a wider audience into the gallery who are then exposed to the art,” he said. “That is not the case for other Haitian art dealers.”

Jules Chaikin said he knew nothing about Haitian art until he met a Haitian artist named Duncan Roseme, who worked on the Venice boardwalk. The musician and his wife, Judy, bought some of Roseme’s pieces. The artist later invited the pair to Galerie Lakaye for an exhibition of his work.

In the last two years, Chaikin, who lives in Studio City, has purchased seven pieces from Galerie Lakaye. The ambience of the gallery, he said, sold him: “It’s in a private home, as opposed to the ritzy galleries around here, which contributes to that homey feeling. And the art fits in so well in the house.”

Chaikin said he was also drawn to the art because of its “unpretentiousness. You get the feeling that creating art is just a natural thing to do, like taking care of children. The art is very open and unaffected.”

The Chaikins have introduced their friends to Galerie Lakaye and Haitian art. At first, he said, some of them “were put off by it. They weren’t used to the use of color and the primitive forms that are indigenous to Haiti. Its not typical of what you find in most galleries.”

But as they became more acquainted with the art, “it grew on them, much to their surprise and amazement,” he said.

Stan Lathan, a television director who lives in Beverly Hills, has “spent a lot of money with (Galerie Lakaye) over the last three years.” Lathan, who is married to a Haitian and often visits the Caribbean nation, said that although much of the art reflects Haiti’s “abject poverty and pain,” many well-known artists are from affluent families who could afford to send their children to art schools.

Still, he appreciates Galerie Lakaye’s eclectic collection and its attention to new Haitian artists as well as to the masters.

Because Fabius is an American citizen and was able to secure a license from the U.S. Treasury Department, she has managed to continue buying art in Haiti despite trade restrictions imposed on the country to force its military rulers from power.

But a recent opening of an exhibit of sculptures and paintings by two well-known Haitian artists had to be held without the artists because the pair couldn’t obtain visas to leave Haiti.

Fabius is concerned that stiffer sanctions will interrupt the flow of Haitian art to the rest of the world. But even if that happens, she says, Haitian artists will continue to create.

“Art, “ Fabius said, “is Haiti’s only natural resource.”