As part of the sale of Thursday, November 7, 2019, PIASA's Contemporary African Art department presents a selection of artists reflecting the diversity of this scene.
After having won London in September 1940 where he joined the Air Force of Free France, this grandson of the Admiral of France Joseph Romain-Desfossés (1798-1864) left France to join Brazzaville and establish a protection status of indigenous arts and crafts. He is then attached to the military office of the High Commission of French Equatorial Africa.
He is interested in anthropology and paints seabed. Soon, he wants to support the local artistic creation, and he created in 1946 an indigenous art workshop, called the "Hangar".
He recruits his "disciples" after having passed an entrance test. According to their qualities, he directs them to easel painting, the most prestigious, or to decorative or advertising painting, equally profitable.
Leaving them free to flourish and express their creative genius, Romain-Desfossés shows that there is in Africa an art other than the statuary and masks that inspired modern painters in the West. The works that come out of the Hangar go against the conformity and history of official art.
Pierre Romain-Desfossés (France, 1887-1954) Sans titre, 1954
Estimate : 1000 / 2000 €
The purpose of Desfossés is to guide his disciples, without imposing the principles of Western art. On the contrary, he encourages them during walks in the bush and during the visit of the Elisabeth zoo, to take inspiration from the nature that surrounds them.
Although contrary to conformism, the achievements of the Hangar are of interest to the European artistic circles to the point of being presented in Belgium, Paris, Rome, London, the MoMA of New York and in South Africa.
Realized in 1954, the mixed technique on paper, offered for sale by PIASA, reflects the inspiration. On an indeterminate background where the colours dilute into each other, the vegetal ramifications lurk the soil of this landscape that seems to play with the abstract / figurative delimitation.
