The painter and writer Max Pinchinat died 41 years ago

41 years ago, on November 7, 1985, Max Pinchinat was found dead in his home in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. A painter, writer, and critic, he championed Haitian painting free from labels.

At the Centre d'art

Born on June 24, 1925, in Port-au-Prince into a petit-bourgeois family, he began attending the Centre d'art, run by Dewitt Peters, in 1947. There, he crossed paths with artists such as Hector Hyppolite, Rigaud Benoit, Luce Turnier, and Wilson Bigaud. He taught drawing and painting and took part in the founding of the Foyer des arts plastiques.

A combative critic

In Le Nouvelliste and Conjonction, he refused to let Haitian art be reduced to naive or primitive art. On the contrary, he sought to marry the country's popular art with contemporary painting.

Life in Paris

Thanks to a scholarship, he went to study in Paris, then settled in France without breaking ties with Haiti, where he returned several times. He worked as a proofreader for the newspaper Le Monde. In 1958, he published Propos sur la peinture haïtienne with Présence africaine, followed in 1961 by the poetry collection Exercices.