22940" (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Collector: Art at heart of Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sun, Aug. 08, 2004


KEY WEST
Collector: Art at heart of Haiti
An 81-year-old gallery owner in Key West has found that the artwork of Haiti
still sparks passion after 27 years.
BY JENNIFER BABSON
jbabson@herald.com

KEY WEST - Boris Kravitz's 30-year passion plays in vivid colors, shimmering
beads and pounded steel upon the walls of a tiny former grocery store in a
corner of this island often overlooked by visitors.

The 81-year old former management analyst is the heart and soul of Key
West's Haitian Art Co., billed -- without qualification, though it may
indeed be true with about 5,000 pieces -- as ``the largest collection of
Haitian art outside of Haiti.''

The gallery has quietly flourished here since 1977, when Kravitz turned
regular pilgrimages to the Caribbean into a vocation that has attracted the
attention of Haitian art collectors from all over the United States.

Film director Jonathan Demme and famed children's book author Shel
Silverstein, now deceased, purchased pieces here. Another big Kravitz fan:
James L. Pavitt, who retired this week as the CIA's deputy director for
operations.

''They tolerated me,'' said Pavitt, who says he's purchased about 35 pieces
there. ``I would come in whenever we were in Key West, drink a con leche
with him, and accumulate art.''

The low-key Kravitz doesn't really tout the place, though he acknowledges
its virtues.

''What I'm proud of is that the gallery has become a place to visit. A lot
of people come here year in and year out,'' he said. ``I think we probably
have a pretty good reputation.''

The popularity of Haitian art -- noted typically for its bright palette and
a representation of familiar images -- has gone up and down over the years.
Many major public art galleries include some Haitian works, and several --
including the Milwaukee Art Museum -- have major holdings.

Kravitz's pieces include painstakingly constructed, iconographic Drapo Vodou
''flags'' made of sequins and beads sewn onto fabric, papier-mché animals,
cards, hand-chiseled metal sculptures fashioned from flattened oil drums and
paintings on a variety of different surfaces. The works are by hundreds of
Haitian artists, from the well-known to the obscure.

Prices range from a few dollars to $25,000. Some of the gallery's better
known artists include painters Jacques Enguerrand Gourgue, Carlo Jn. Jacques
and Petion Savain.

`A COMPANION'

''I think of it as sort of a companion,'' Kravitz said of the gallery, ``I
don't think of it as one of my children.''

Kravitz already has six children, ranging in age from 6 to 51, and recently
married his second wife, Marie Coine Kravitz, 34. They met in Haiti when she
came to sell him her father's paintings.

The Atlantic City native first traveled to Haiti in the 1970s and rapidly
discovered the lush island ''had this special attraction,'' both in terms of
its people and its art.

Soon, he was procuring pieces at the Port-au-Prince iron market: 35
paintings that he said may have cost him $25 each and that he mounted at a
Key West art gallery.

''Within a couple of days they were sold,'' Kravitz recalled. 'The owner
said, `Why don't you go back and buy some more?' I went back, and within 10
days, I purchased 84 paintings and then they sold.''

Kravitz and his daughter Ruth had already purchased a small Conch-style
building on the corner of Frances and Southard streets, on a quiet block of
homes away from rowdy Duval Street. A few years later, it became the Haitian
Art Co.

Kravitz soon discovered that he was living two very different lives on two
very different islands.

Over the past three decades, he has spent most of his time in Haiti, living
among the people and visiting artists in their homes. He has seen Haitian
turmoil up close, narrowly escaping personal violence and dodging bullets.
That discord is evident in many of the works he buys.

Along the way, Kravitz has helped a few Haitians in their efforts to leave
the country, has fallen in love more than once and has given a number of
artists a helping hand.

''I get personally involved with a lot of the artists, more and more. Some
of them have become ill and they have family situations and so on,'' Kravitz
explained.

Several of the artists have succumbed to AIDS. Others have made it to the
United States, only to retire their paintbrushes in favor of more
''practical'' pursuits.

''People are doing it as a way to make a living in Haiti,'' said Arlo
Haskell, Kravitz's Key West assistant. ``Which would be a dumb choice in the
United States. Most of the time when they come to the U.S., they change
their profession.''

The art company is unusual in other aspects. Prices are clearly marked on
most pieces. And a number of Kravitz's repeat customers make later purchases
from the gallery's website or after requesting photo arrays for particular
artists.

''You build a reputation of fair play and people come back to you,'' Kravitz
said.

Rebel activities in recent months have made it difficult to move work from
the northern city of Cap Haitien. Artists from that region are known for
their distinctive, meticulous lines and somewhat muted palette.

Kravitz relies on an assistant, Hadler Petit, 34, to help with his rounds in
Haiti and navigate an aging Mitsubishi Pajero through the potholed streets
of Port-au-Prince.

RETRIBUTION FEARS

Fears of violent political retribution have filtered into the concerns of
some artists. One painter Kravitz regularly buys from refused a recent
gallery request to paint a scene of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
surrounded by U.S. troops, penning a resignation letter.

''He's a guy who has done a number of powerful political paintings over the
years,'' Kravitz said.

''But his paintings are taken to the States and word gets back to Haiti and
it becomes a danger to him,'' he said.

As for the future of Haiti, Kravitz believes it will partly be up to those
who have left to shape its destiny.

''The solution is in process,'' he said. ``It is the diaspora.''






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