Painter Vaco Baissaic has just put away his brushes for good. The 82-year-old artist passed away on 4 February. His funeral will take place later this week.
“I would like to go slowly from one side to the other! But there has to be something on the other side. But the most important thing when you die is the legacy you leave behind,” the artist told us during one of our meetings with him. Very ill, he passed away on the evening of 4 February at his home in the Swan housing estate in Péreybère.
Vaco’s life was as colourful as his paintings. The son of an architect, he always lived in the world of drawing before deciding to become a painter. He exhibited for the first time in Mauritius in 1958. He then exhibited in Reunion Island in 1960. In the same year, he worked with Serge Constantin and Siegfried Sammer at the Plaza Theatre (Rose Hill) until 1963. From 1964 to 1970 Vaco went to Paris and Brussels to study.
With a style all his own, the artist held several exhibitions here and elsewhere. In 1993, he represented Mauritius at the 90th anniversary of the Salon d’Automne at the Grand Palais in Paris. He has also exhibited in Brussels, Switzerland. In October 2002, the Vera Museum in Saint-Germain-en-Laye opened its doors to him, as did the prestigious Italian gallery ARTE92 in Milan in 2003.
In December 2005, he presented his exhibition “Voyages to the South Seas”, which was inspired by a trip he made in 2004 and which took him to Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia and the Marquesas.
In January 2008, we find him in Hong Kong for a private exhibition.
An artist with a big heart, he was known for his outspokenness and his love for the Creole language.
