Gerard Paul was born in
Port-au-Prince, Haiti on October 9, 1943. By the time he was six years
old, both of his parents had died and he was raised, in meager circumstances,
by his godmother. By age 14 he was apprenticed to a carpenter and then to a
bricklayer but finally he became a house painter. At the end of 1963 he went to
work as a houseboy at the German Embassy in Port-au-Prince. Soon after, he
did his first painting and showed it to the wife of the Ambassador, Mdme.
Malsy-Minsk. She loved the work and provided him with encouragement and art
materials. Eventually he took his paintings to the Galerie Monnin and
rapidly became a favorite of collectors worldwide. He was at the time a
cheerful, positive man who became one of the most important artists of the
70’s, winning first prize in the “Masters of the Dew” painting competition in
1978.
In the early 1980's Gerard Paul moved to the United States where reportedly his
talent evaporated and he eventually stopped painting altogether. If anyone
knows Gerard Paul, we would love to hear about or from him.
