potrero view

April 2010

Henri Marie-Rose, 1922-2010

Born in François, Martinique on January 5, 1922, the son of Appien Constance Raymonde and Quentin Joseph Marie-Rose Dit Cétoute, Henri Marie-Rose Dite Cétoute, who informally shortened his name to Henri Marie-Rose, was a San Francisco resident for 58 years, spending most of that time living on Potrero Hill.

As documented in a 1995 retrospective exhibition sponsored by the Alliance Française de San Francisco, Henri began sculpting at the age of seven.  His artistic talents first emerged when as a child he was walking in François.  Marie-Rose saw a stone lying on the ground. Somewhere inside the stone, he saw a dog. The little dog – a mongrel – was crouching. He picked up the stone and eventually brought the dog out of it.  It wasn’t easy; he had no tools. But Marie-Rose befriended the local ironmonger, who let him use his fire to make a cold chisel. And so began the sculptor’s career.

Marie-Rose soon turned to painting, and again his resourcefulness came to the fore. Watercolors and art supplies were not easy to come by in Francois. Marie-Rose went to the local paint factory and begged for pigment. He mixed the pigment with okra, guessing correctly that the vegetable’s gooey liquid would act as a binding agent. Later, he perfected his paint by replacing the okra with tapioca starch.

Marie-Rose attended the Ecole des Arts et Métiers and the Ecole des Arts Appliqués in Martinique. Before he turned twenty he’d mounted three one-man shows, and was appointed Attache Culturel au Projet d’Urbanisme.  He was commissioned to create a bust of the prominent volcanologist Frank Peret, which to this day stands in St. Pierre’s town square.  He was honored by the United States Navy, stationed off the island, with a battleship tour of the area.

Marie-Rose received a scholarship from the French government to study at the Ecole National Superieure des Beaux Arts for eight years in Paris ,but got only as a far as North Africa because of the Second World War. He studied ceramics with Lamaly, Master of Safi. He mounted two one man shows in Casablanca, and was sponsored by the French painter Joseph de La Néziere, who deeded Marie-Rose a beautiful home and garden located in Paris’ Montmartre district. Marie-Rose later gave the house to the family of his sponsor. During that time he was in active duty in the French Army from 1944 to 1945.

Marie-Rose attended Ecole des Arts Appliqués and Ecole des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, mounting one man shows between 1947 and 1953 in Paris, Baden Baden, Berlin, Munich, and Corsica.  During this period, he met Marjorie Raitt, who was attending the Sorbonne and Academie Julian, and who had just graduated from Stanford University (Class of 1949).  Raitt and Marie-Rose married in 1952. The couple traveled by freighter to San Francisco in 1953, settling in North Beach. Two years later, the couple purchased a home on Potrero Hill, where Henri continued to sculpt, paint, create jewelry, draw, and renovate their small Victorian house.

In 1956 Marie-Rose won the Emanuel Walter Purchase Prize.  In the later part of the 1950s he participated in a series of events, including the Third Biennial of Sao Paulo, Brazil, winning prizes and recognition for his paintings. He exhibited throughout California, Oregon, Washington, and New Mexico.  He was a faculty member of the California School of Fine Arts from 1956 to 1959, and performed an eighteen-week series entitled Techniques in Sculpture on Public Broadcasting affiliate KQED. In 1960, an exhibition of Marie-Rose’s work at the M. H. De Young Museum filled two large rooms, and included twenty-eight sculptures of welded steel, copper and brass, sculpted lead, and carved wood and marble.  

Marie-Rose entertained scores of people over the years, singing songs from Martinique and France while playing his drum.  He helped organize and performed at the annual Potrero Hill Library Art Show.  He could recite entire passages of classical French poetry and plays.  Marie-Rose spent his later years as a teacher and mentor at the Artist in Residency Program sponsored by Recology, which provides young artists with the opportunity to create art from discarded materials.

Marie-Rose’s love of nature and art never waned.  In a 1995 interview he said, “Sculpture puts me in touch with the sensuality that speaks to the mind and the soul. Sculpting is like vacating the shell and looking at it. I try to make sculpture that is decent, neat, organic. Then it is there, and everybody takes what they want from it...or not. I sculpt for the pleasure of discovering what is beautiful and what is not. Sculpting soothes my apprehensions.”

 A retrospective show of Marie-Rose’s work will take place in May.  In addition to his wife, Marie-Rose is survived by his two sons, Pierre-Joseph, a pediatric specialist, and Philippe-Laurence, an industrial psychologist, born in 1961 and 1963 respectively. Philippe lives just outside Seattle with his wife Karen and two children, Madeleine, 10 years old, and Connor, nine.  Pierre, a life long Potrero Hill resident, lives with his wife Yesenia and daughter, Andrea, four years old.  Other survivors include his sister Raphaelle, who lives in New Caledonia, and numerous half-siblings, who live in Martinique and Paris.  Marie-Rose’s family is currently searching for a permanent location in Martinique to display his work, as was his wish.

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