Descollines ,Manes
(1933-1985)

 

Descollines Manès was born in 1936 in Petit-Trou-de-Nippes. Manes was taught to read by his father, whom he remembered as an angry man who often beat him.

Self-taught as an artist, he worked for five years at the Barbancourt rum distillery. At seventeen he became an apprentice in the building trade and posed as a model for a painter from the Dominican Republic, Jaime Colson, who was also the director of the Dramatic Art Society of Haiti.

Descollines began to study painting under Gérard Résil and Dieudonné Cédor and then under Luckner Lazard in 1961. In 1962, he carried on his professional and artistic activities simultaneously, and took up ceramics under TIGA and Emmanuel Joachim. He exhibited in Haiti and abroad. His scenes of Haitian life are highly prized by collectors. Many of his works depict children playing in the streets.

In 1975, Descollines discovered he was acutely allergic to all forms of paint, a tragedy for him as an artist. Anguished, lonely, and mad, he made several failed attempts to kill himself, but unfortunately in 1985 he succeeded.

Exhibitions
1982 - International Art Expo, New York, NY
1984 - Bacardi Gallery, Miami, Florida
1984 - Meridian House International, Washington, D.C.
1986 - International Art Exposition, New York, N.Y.
1986 - A.H. Riise Gallery, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
1988 - Galerie Savannah Blue, Tampa, Florida
1991 - Le Musée d'Art Haitien, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Books and Catalogues
1982 - Art Expo: New York, p. 213

1986 - La Peinture Haitienne, pp. 6, 165

2000 – Peintres Haitiens by Gérald Alexis pp120