The Race

St. Louis was born in 1956 in Cap Haitian, the second of four brothers, all of whom went on to become accomplished painters. In 1971 he began to paint under the tutelage of the Bottex Brothers and Charles Anatole and moved to Port-au-Prince shortly afterward. There, he worked for a time in the atelier of the Galerie Issa in the company of some of the great painters of Haiti, Andre Pierre, Andre Normil and Jacques Chery. In time he became bored and left Haiti for the Bahamas. When he returned after two years, he came to the Galerie Monnin where he became one of the new generation of Haitian masters, painting and learning side by side with Simil, Senatus and Calixte Henri. Blaise is obsessed with detail and precision in his paintings. In his early years he painted historical scenes, then moved through various stages before settling on grossly obese people as his favored subject matter. St. Louis Blaise died from a rare blood disease in May 1993.