Andre Pierre, born around 1916 in Port-au-Prince, was a farmer and an active Vodou practitioner before being introduced to the Centre d'Art in the late 1940s by film-maker Maya Deren who had admired his temple wall paintings. 

 

Pierre eventually became a Vodou priest internationally noted (via filmed documentary appearances and frequent discourse with the many foreign visitors to his studio) for his eloquent spoken insights into the Vodou religion as well as his highly respected visualizations of the Vodou pantheon of deities in his paintings.  

 

He painted in the small studio inside his family compound/Vodou community located in Croix-des-Missions on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.  In 1996, Pierre was the Gold Medal Winner at the 5th Venezuelan Bienniele.  

 

His work is included in the permanent collections of the Milwaukee Museum of Art, the Figge Art Museum in Iowa, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, and Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey.

 

Danticat, Edwige, and Jonathan Demme.

Island on Fire.  New York:  Kaliko Press, 1995