2. Paris and the French West Indies

Paris

he next five years were spent primarily in France, though Rosin did return to the states every so often to exhibit and sell his work. During one of those trips back home, Rosin competed to win the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts’ Edward Stewardson Prize – a competition that tasked sculptors to create a figure in the round, between two-feet-six-inches and three-feet tall, within eighteen hours. Rosin won the $100 prize at the end of the three-day long competition.^[1]

Rosin seemed to enjoy his time in Paris where he worked alongside such figures as Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Jacques Lipschitz, Giorgio de Chirico, and Bill Ney. During this time he exhibited his work in a variety of French shows, including the “Modern American Artists of Paris” exhibition of 1932.^[2] One of Rosin’s favorite stories to tell of his time in Paris was when he and Giacometti went to visit the studio of Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi. When they arrived, Brancusi was asleep on a cot facing the wall. Not wanting to wake him, the two showed themselves around the studio until, quite suddenly, Brancusi woke up, walked over to one of his pieces in-progress, and began to work on it. The two simply stood back, waiting for Brancusi to say something. However, Brancusi labored in silence until just as suddenly, he stood up, walked back over to the cot and went back to sleep.^[3] Rosin and Giacometti, at this point, decided to leave.

Rosin chose to return to America after his 1932 exhibition in Paris. Unfortunately, he arrived to find a country gripped by the depression and soon found that a sculptor’s skills were not in high demand. Rosin needed to make a living, and he did not want to wind up selling apples on the street in order to eat.^[4] America was simply too expensive, and there was no work.

While talking to old schoolmate and fellow-artist Saul Schary, Rosin decided to once again, leave America and try to make a living elsewhere. Schary had recently returned from a ‘cinema venture’ in the West Indies, and told Rosin of the great beauty and extreme inexpensiveness of the French-held island of Martinique – he specifically used the example that a man could buy a large Rum Punch for a mere three cents.^[5] Rosin was sold, and left New York for Martinique.

Sailing for the Caribbean

On his way to the islands, Rosin met Ali Tur, the man who would commission one of Rosin’s largest sculptures – a twenty-foot figure of Christ for the façade of a new church in Lamentin. The ship picked up Tur in Guadeloupe, which was one of its stops on the way to Martinique. In 1928 a vicious hurricane had destroyed many of buildings on the island, and the French government had contracted Tur to replace them. Ali Tur actually remembered Rosin from one of his exhibits in Paris, and while on the ship Tur bought a torso Rosin had sculpted while in France.^[6]

When the ship arrived in Martinique, Rosin was disheartened to find that, despite the admittedly cheap rum punches, the island was very expensive.^[7] Fortunately for Rosin, Ali Tur was in the middle of designing a new church for Guadeloupe, and he needed a sculptor. Tur approached Rosin with the prospect of returning to Guadeloupe to sculpt the Christ for the church’s façade, and Rosin happily agreed.

Rosin soon headed back to Guadeloupe, staying at the Hotel des Antilles in Pointe-à-Pitre. While Rosin described the city as picturesque, he was also dismayed by the filth and noise pervading the streets. A “hectic symphony” of shouting drivers, squealing pigs, fighting dogs, and battling roosters often kept up late into the night, and the narrow streets were surrounded by deep gutters carrying open sewage.^[8] Rosin reflected that the noise, heat, flying roaches, and giant spiders all made him feel very far away from home.^[9] It was not only the scenery, however, that had an impact on Rosin. The behavior of the natives was certainly of interest, and he remarked on how they would walk around with umbrellas at night to ward off the “evil rays” of the moon.^[10] They also had plenty of criticisms ready for the façade on which he would soon begin to work.

A contract for Rosin’s work was drawn up on November 4^th, 1932. He was to be paid a total of 12,000 francs in three installments – the first when work began, the second when finished, and the final payment when the Architect, or his representative, accepts the work.^[11] Lamentin, where the church was being built, was ten miles from Pointe-à-Pitre, the island’s main port. The road connecting the two towns, however, was very primitive and surrounded by dirt shacks and sugar cane plantations. At the time Lamentin was also hidden by the thick tropical growth and marsh, and so Rosin was understandably surprised when he turned a corner to find a square of modern buildings, including a schoolhouse, town hall, and church, all done in a very modern style.^[12]

He quickly began work, choosing to build the Christ directly onto the church using a trowel and wet cement that his assistant, a local boy, would mix in a wheelbarrow below and send up in buckets. However, as he ascended the scaffolding and sculpted the new façade, he was struck by the contrast between the ultra-modern architecture and the primitive scenes below him. He wrote that “almost every third person had elephantiasis, many were blind, sores all over them…and so very many funeral processions.”^[13] Along with depressing Rosin, the scenes often unnerved him. Still, he pressed on with his façade, choosing to fashion it in a more modern style in accordance with the wishes of the architect.^[14] Unfortunately for Rosin, neither the priest nor the people of Guadeloupe particularly cared for this style of art. The priest, wanting a realistic portrait in lieu of the sculpture, often argued with the architect. The people, meanwhile, would state that this statue could not possibly be of the Lord – after all, the Lord was only the size of a man, and this sculpture was nearly twenty feet tall!^[15] Happily, the bishop upon seeing it declared it a masterpiece, silencing all critics and, to Rosin’s relief, “saved [him] from much embarrassment in the termination of the figure.”^[16] This job took Rosin a month and a half to complete, and he was all too happy to leave Lementin.^[17] His work on the Christ did lead to a few more commissions, allowing Rosin to make a bit of money and get some work under his belt.^[18] Today, Rosin’s statue of Christ still adorns the Catholic Church in Lamentin.

Rosin’s first project was again for the bishop, fashioning a sculpture of Christ for the altar of another church while staying in a studio at Basse-Terre.^[19] Rosin enjoyed the Bishop’s company, calling him “one of the few moral forces of the island,” but the island simply did not match his expectations. He spent nine months working on Guadeloupe and Martinique, neither of which were much to his tastes. Sickness and disease eclipsed the otherwise picturesque natural beauty of the islands. Rosin wrote that his decision to finally leave the island was made after talking to a medical examiner who informed him that lepers were being allowed to walk around free. As such, Rosin opted to leave.^[20]

Living on the islands, however, had been a good decision and did lead to a bit of work. The reports Rosin received from back home painted a fairly bleak picture, and he was interested in continuing to study the often-romanticized tropical islands.^[21] After talking to an engineer on the island who had photographs and stories of living in Tahiti, Rosin resolved to head to the island, taking a ship that stopped at Guadeloupe and would make its way through the Panama Canal to Tahiti.^[22]