Frantz Zephirin

Frantz Zephirin was born in Cap Haitien, Haiti on December 17, 1968.
By his reckoning, he is the 24th of 48 children sired by his architect father (with 19 different women). As a toddler he sat and watched his uncle, the Haitiain painter Antoine Obin, as he worked. By the age of 7, Frantz was collecting paint in bottlecaps to do his own paintings. Within a year he was selling paintings to the tourists from cruise ships that docked in Le Cap in those days and by age thirteen, lying about his age, he was selling work to galleries.
Eventually he moved to Port-au-Prince and became associated with the Galerie Monnin. His style is unique among the painters of the Northern School. He describes himself as a 'Historic Animalist'. He is entirely self-taught. Unlike many Haitian painters, he usually titles his paintings.

Zephirin counts among his influences Leonardo daVinci, Charles Darwin and the Lost Continent of Atlantis. His work is also heavily influenced by the spirits of Vodou. He has exhibited internationally. In October 1996 he was awarded the Gold medal in the Third Biennial of Caribbean and Central American Painting sponsored by The Museum of Modern Art of the Dominican Republic. He was one of five Haitians to be included in the 5th Biennial in Cuenca, Ecuador in 1996.

Two of his paintings were featured in the 'Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou' that toured the USA in 1997 and 1998. A painting of his is on the cover of the hardback bestseller, 'The Immaculate Invasion' by Bob Schocassis, published in 1999.

His work was shown by the American Visionary Art Museum in 2004-5 and in 2006-7. Paintings of his were exhibited in 'Vodou Riche' at Columbia College in Chicago in 2007. In 2009 his work was exhibited in the show 'Roots and More, Journey of the Spirits' at the Afrika Museum in Holland and is featured in the catalogue.

In January, 2010 one of his paintings was on the cover of the New Yorker magazine and another on the cover of 'Haiti Art Naif, Memories of Paradise', the catalogue for a show in Germany where he spent the Spring of 2010 painting.

Zephirin is a vodou priest and lives and works in his temple high on a mountain overlooking Mariani, outside of Port-au-Prince, but since the earthquake he has been traveling extensively.

In America his preferred means of transport has been the Greyhound Bus. He uses the long hours enroute to read and ruminate on his art.

The September issue of Smithsonian Mag gave him his second major cover in 2010.