Most of the paintings of Obin’s first half-century—often on cardboard, sometimes on Masonite—are lost.His style of representations of Haitian street scenes or visions from Haitian history was not of interest to middle-class Haitians, who preferred works that aped French paintings. Obin also painted murals and other decorative pieces for commercial establishments, fraternal organizations, and Protestant chapels in the beginning.

In 1944, a Centre d’Art was opened in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, by Dewitt Peters, an American Quaker and conscientious objector who had been sent to Haiti by the U.S. Office of Education as an alternative to World War II military service. Peters, also an artist, was hoping to promote Haitian art, inspired by the works he had seen decorating voodoo temples