Albert Lubaki (1895-?, Congo)
Untitled, circa 1930s
Ink and watercolor on paper
Signed 'A Lubaki' on the top right
Stamped "CENTRE D'ART POPULAIRE BRUXELLES 51-53"
56 × 74 cm
Katanga, 1920s. George Thiry is sent on a mission by the Kingdom of Belgium as a territorial administrator. He meets several artists, to whom he provides supplies to create works on paper. Among these encounters is the ivory sculptor Albert Lubaki and his wife Antoinette, partners in life.
Antoinette and Albert Lubaki approach paper with a rare simplicity both in the form of the subjects they represent and in the use of colors applied in large washes of watercolor and ink. They are inspired by daily life and nature, mythology and local legends. During the twenty or so years during which they are active, Georges Thiry exhibits their watercolors in Europe, at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1929, at the Musée d’ethnographie in Geneva the following year and at the Charles-Auguste Girard Gallery in Paris in 1929. In1931, Albert Lubaki’s work is also shown in Rome at the first international exhibition of colonial art.
The four works in the Maine Durieu collection are signed A. Lubaki. These rare, elegant images of apparent simplicity poetically depict the daily chores and environment in which our two artists live. The watercolor border, characteristic of Albert and Antoinette Lubaki's work, serves as a frame for the subjects, which are transcended by an unlikely palette of pastel hues pictured by the artist's unique interpretation.
After progressively falling into the cracks of art historical memory, from the 1940s on, the Lubaki's works, like those of their colleague Djilatendo, were reintroduced to the general public through the exhibition Beauté Congo, Congo Kitoko (1926 - 2015), held at Fondation Cartier in Paris, in 2015 - 2016.
