Art News

Haitian Study from Now Destroyed Port-au-Prince Cathedral Mural Added to Bonhams Sale

LOS ANGELES, CA.- A painting, contemporaneously taken from an important 1950 Port-au-Prince religious mural lost in the 2010 Haiti earthquake, is being offered for sale at Bonhams in New York on May 11 during the inaugural bi-coastal Modern, Contemporary and Latin American Art auction. The oil on masonite painting titled Nativity, which will be unveiled to the public at Bonhams in Los Angeles on April 30, was painted by leading Haitian artist Rigaud Benoit. The work was produced around the time Benoit was commissioned, along with three other leading Haitian artists, to paint a monumental mural series in the apse of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, located close to the National Palace in Port-au-Prince’s main square. Importantly, this commission likely marks the first time in the country’s history that local artists were invited and paid to create art in a public space. With the original mural now destroyed, this painting carr