Haitian painter Pierre-Sylvain Augustin, known as Payas, died during the night of October 23 to 24, Le Nouvelliste reported on Sunday, October 25. He was 84.

He was born on December 12, 1941, in Divette, near Pétion-Ville. Before he ever held a brush, he worked the land as a farmer and then earned his living as a mason. The newspaper called him a singular figure in Haitian painting.

Payas came to art late, in 1992, after he became the neighbor of Prospère Pierre-Louis, a leading figure of the Saint-Soleil movement whose work the French writer André Malraux admired.

Le Nouvelliste did not say where he died or give the cause of his death.