Joseph, of Haitian parentage, spent his childhood in the Dominican Republic, where he completed his early schooling and studied music in the evenings.  In 1937 he settled in Haiti with his family.  In Port-au-Prince he worked as an apprentice tailor and later a tailor.

 

In 1944, Joseph joined the Centre d'Art, studying watercolor under Dewitt Peters and rapidly developing a style of his own.  He became a member of the Centre d'Art's administrative council.  Still a practicing tailor, he continued his pictorial research and studied sculpture with Jason Seley.  He worked with Pierre Bourdelle on a mural painting project for Port-au-Prince's bicentennial, from 1945 to 1949.  With the financial assistance of the Centre d'Art, he gave up his tailor's shop in 1952 to devote himself fully to his art.

 

Joseph studied casein painting techniques with American artist Paul Keene and received two Guggenheim Foundation awards, in 1953 and 1957.  With Dewitt Peters, he travelled to the United States, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Morocco, Germany, and Switzerland in 1963, and from that year to 1969 he returned often to the United States, where he studied serigraphy Franck Jacobson.

 

He became a member of the administrative council of the Musee d'Art Haitien du College Saint Pierre in 1972 and later began teaching drawing and serigraphy at the Centre d'Art.  His work has been exhibited in Haiti, the United States, Mexico, Jamaica, and Spain, and is represented in the permanent collection of the Musee d'Art Haitien du College Saint Pierre in Port-au-Prince.

 

Nadal, Marie-Jose, and Gerald Bloncourt.

La Peinture Haitienne.  Paris:  Editions Nathan, 1986