Under a rain of bullets, Haitian police rescue thousands of artworks

Washington Post

4 days ago

In the days this month after Haitian gangs incinerated Port-au-Prince's famed Hotel Oloffson, the Gothic-gingerbread retreat for such luminaries as Ernest Hemingway, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando and Mick Jagger, rumors grew that they were now setting their sights on another cultural landmark: the Centre d'Art.
Allenby Augustin, director of the museum and art school, had long fretted about the security of the center, one of the oldest such institutions in the Caribbean and home to many of the most important works of Haitian art. In March, a powerful coalition of gangs moved into the neighborhood, occupying homes next door and stealing the center's solar panels, generator and batteries.
But late last week, in a rare victory for Haiti's outnumbered and outgunned police force, dozens of officers and museum staffers successfully executed a two-day operation, under steady gunfire, to salvage thousands of pieces of art and documents key to the nation's vibrant cultural patrimony.
The works, which include paintings by the 20th-century masters Hector Hyppolite, Philomé Obin and his son Antoine and sculpture by Georges Liautaud, were escorted under armed guard out of gang-controlled territory to an undisclosed location. Museum staff are now conducting an inventory to determine whether anything is missing, Augustin said, but so far, he is 'confident' that most of its 6,000 artworks and 3,600 documents have been 'successfully recovered.
'These works are of inestimable value,' Augustin told The Washington Post. 'The entire collection of the Centre d'Art and the Haitian Art Museum represents a unique and irreplaceable cultural heritage for the nation. Preserving it is essential to transmitting Haitian history and identity to future generations.'
A police official who took part in the operation described the center as a 'bien collectif' — a 'collective good.' The 'police are here to protect and serve,' said the officer, who, like others in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the public. 'And in this case, we saved a part of our national identity.'
The Centre d'Art was established in 1944 by the Haitian intelligentsia and DeWitt Peters, an American watercolorist who had traveled to Haiti to teach English. It had the backing of the State Department and the Haitian government, which recognized it in 1947 as a public utility. Archival video from the 1950s shows artists drawing, painting and sculpting in a sunny courtyard.
The center has played a key role in the development of Haitian art, functioning not just as a gallery and exhibition space but as a training center for hundreds of artists. It also helped connect them with international buyers. Collectors of Haitian art, a varied tradition that draws on African and European influences, have included former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme.
The building was destroyed in the 2010 earthquake that flattened Port-au-Prince, but the artwork was saved and packed into containers. The worsening violence wrought by Haiti's gangs — who in recent years have killed and kidnapped thousands and driven 1.3 million people from their homes — has posed a new threat. The center suspended operations in February.
Last week, as many as 60 people helped rescue the artworks. Police used armored vehicles to clear the heavily barricaded streets around the center and establish a security perimeter.
'It was a huge risk,' the police official said, because the gangs are deeply entrenched in the area. 'They treated the zone like it belonged to them.'
The bandits had vandalized the center, another officer said, sawing through iron bars, stealing bathroom sinks and windowpanes, damaging the ventilation system and blasting holes through walls. It appeared they were going through the center to enter surrounding homes without using the streets, he said.
Gang members had tried to open the containers that held the art, the officer said, but it appeared the works inside were still intact. They were shooting at police from the house next door, he said: It looked as if 'they were waiting for us.'
The officer has experienced the violence personally: He lost his home in Carrefour-Feuilles and his cars.
'But I still have my job,' he said. 'I do it with all my heart. It's a duty. …
'I didn't even understand what the paintings meant. But it's art. It's not meant to be understood by everyone.'
The destruction of the Hotel Oloffson, burned to the ground July 5, was a wake-up call. The architectural and historical landmark, immortalized by Graham Greene in 'The Comedians,' his dark satire on life under the brutal dictatorship of François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, is a 10-minute walk from the Centre d'Art.
'It made us more alert,' the first officer said. 'That, too, was part of our heritage.'
The Gothic-gingerbread mansion was built in the 19th century as a private residence by a relative of President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam. The style, which features steeply pitched roofs, high ceilings and deep porches fringed with intricate latticework, was brought to Port-au-Prince by Haitian architects who sought to adapt the resort architecture of France to the tropical climate of the Caribbean nation.
It was Sam's assassination in 1915 that prompted U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to send in the Marines and occupy the country for 19 years.
The building was converted into a hotel in the 1930s and over the decades attracted artists, writers and celebrity jet-setters, for whom its rooms would be named. A 1967 film adaptation of Graham's novel — featuring Taylor, Richard Burton, Alec Guinness, Peter Ustinov, Lilian Gish, Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones — spread its fame.
In 1925, the mayor of Port-au-Prince ordered all new buildings in the capital to be made of masonry and or reinforced concrete to resist fire, according to the World Monuments Fund, and the gingerbread style fell out of favor. In recent years, gangs have destroyed several Gothic-gingerbread houses.
'The Oloffson Hotel should be considered a sanctuary — an architectural jewel — for its history and the stories it carries to future generations,' said Nesmy Manigat, a former education minister. 'We must not create a dangerous precedent where cultural heritage loses its value in the eyes of the youth and where the country's riches fall into neglect.'
Manigat breathed a 'deep sigh of relief,' he said, when he learned the center's art had been saved.
'Our cultural heritage is the symbol of this country's resistance,' Manigat said. 'It's emblematic of who we are, the last rampart. No matter the political or natural disasters … that's our brand: culture. And we must protect it first.'
Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, former prime minister of Haiti and president of the Centre d'Art's board, said the institution remains committed to nurturing the next generation of Haitian artists — no matter the calamity.
'Our philosophy is to never lose hope,' she said. 'We have been through many turmoils — political, social, natural — and have always [found] the strength and stamina to look ahead, resist and find ways to overcome.'