24273: LeGrace Benson (comment)Passing of Issa

[corbetre@webster.edu]

>From Legrace Benson <legrace@twcny.rr.com> 

 
There is much to be said about this outstanding dealer who was so much more
than simply a buyer and seller and collector of paintings.  My few words:

Issa is an irreplaceable set of threads in the fabric of the history of
Haitian art.  He immeasurably enriched and informed his many visitors with
his knowledge, his wisdom and his wit.

I went to Haiti seeking to learn about this art that was so different from
anything I had ever studied. A conversation with Issa the first week I was
there helped me to begin to commence to start to try to see and comprehend.
He knew I was not there to buy, yet he was as generous with his time and
explanations as if I had been there to purchase one of the great, costly
treasures of the masters. His knowledge informed much of what I was able to
write in the first article I ever wrote on Haitian art and when I visited
him again, he patiently set me straight on some things I?d missed.

Always hospitable, he arranged for me to photograph works and to visit
several artists in the studio spaces he provided for them. I smile to
remember his shoes: an artist had decorated his sneakers with high-spirited
florals. That was distinctly Issa, and as distinctively Haitian as the
tap-taps with their floral and geometric enframed Bible verses.  Each time I
would go to Haiti I would pay a call to Issa, and each time I came away
knowing more than I had before.  I wish I had seen him many more times. I
wish, oh! how I wish there were many more times to come.