Wilson Bigaud

Wilson Bigaud was discovered by Dewitt Peters as early as 1946 who discouraged him from continuing work in clay.  At the Art Center, he worked under Maurice Borno. He studied with the legendary Hector Hyppolite, for whom he mixed paints. In 1950, he won the second prize at an international exhibit in Washington, D.C. He completed his “Marriage at Cana,” one of the finest of the famed Episcopal Cathedral of Sainte Trinite murals, in 1951 and later two additional murals, “Heaven” and “Hell.”

Bigaud suffered from acute depression most of his life and endured a series of nervous breakdowns between 1957 and 1961. He then retired from the Port-au-Prince art scene, at the age of 30, continuing to paint in Petit-Goâve, a provincial town devastated by the 2010 earthquake, the year of Bigaud's death.

With Prefete Duffault, Bigaud is considered a first generation Haitian Master, a member of the artist group founded by Hector Hyppolite.  He first worked in clay before becoming a painter.

Exhibits

2012 Kafou: Haiti, Art and Vodou.  Nottingham Contemporary

Published in

Danticat, Edwige, and Jonathan Demme. Island on Fire. New York: Kaliko Press, 1995

Farquharson, Alex and Leah Gordon Kafou: Haiti, Art and Vodou.  2012. Nottingham Contemporary. Nottingham, England.

Nadal, Marie-Jose and Gerald Bloncourt. 1986. La Peinture Haitienne, Haitian Arts. Paris: Editions Nathan

Permanent Collections

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Musee d'Art Haitien du College Saint Pierre, Port-au-Prince

The Milwaukee Museum of Art

The Waterloo Museum of Art, Iowa

The UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles.