A lawyer and judge, he also wrote articles and poetry for the Haitian newspapers, painting in his free time.  At age fifty-one he began to paint full-time, joining the Centre d'Art in 1960.  Although best-known for his commercially successful, Henri Rousseau-like jungle scenes, Philippe-Auguste also painted (in a similar style) still lifes, carnivals, scenes from nature, and human figures posed against backgrounds of stylized flora and/or fauna.

 

To create new designs, the artist often combined and re-used the preparatory drawings on tracing paper which he transferred to Masonite for his paintings.

 

Stebich, Ute.  A Haitian Celebration:  Art and Culture.  Milwaukee:  Milwaukee Art Museum, 1992