Yves Michaud was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on January 27, 1950. He began painting in 1969 with Nehemy Jean. In the mid seventies, he became close friends with the great Haitian impressionist, Carlo Jean-Jacques. They painted side by side in the atelier at the Galerie Monnin in Petionville for the last year or so of Carlo's life. Michaud is a living Haitian master who paints intimate portraits of everyday Haitian life in a most remarkable fashion; he uses body attitude and facial expression to lift his subjects into an ethereal zone.