Mwenze Kibwanga (Kilumba,1925 – 1999, Lubumbashi)

Painting oil on canvas 60’s, signed, 42 x 34 cm. Mwenze Kibwanga, son of a weaver, was born in 1925 in Kilumba, Katanga province In 1934, he started attending classes at the Protestant mission in Mwanza, where he also took drawing lessons. He left the village in 1942 to settle in Elisabethville and continued his basic education with the Methodists for two more years Unable to earn a living, he began to draw and was noticed by the Belgian Gaston Pletinckx in 1946, who took him under his wing and encouraged him to specialise in portraiture In 1950, Kibwanga was admitted to the "l'Atelier du Hangar" founded by French painter, Romain-Desfossés There, he developed his style, bringing his subjects to life through a technique of hatching and parallel lines alternating between light and dark tones that follow the shapes of people, animals, and vegetation By reproducing the geometry of the wooden chisel, Mwenze developed a form of 'sculptural painting' Sculptors of "traditional" statues inspired him His scenes of the daily life of yesteryear have a very special interpretation.