Mode MUNTU (1940-1985) - Lot 84

Mode MUNTU (1940-1985) Untitled. Oil on cardboard. Signed 2 times on the back. +/- 27 x 36.4 cm. Note: Mode Muntu, born in 1940 in Lubumbashi, Congo, the eldest of fourteen siblings, joined the local Academy of Fine Arts at the age of fourteen. He created most of his works in gouache on cardboard, developing a singular aesthetic based on the original use of four-color printing and precise brushwork. His compositions, made up of small colored dots that clash with one another, most often depict graphic silhouettes, both male and female. He died in 1985, and remained unknown to the art market for a long time. It was only after his death that his work was rediscovered and promoted through a number of initiatives: a major exhibition at the Cité Miroir in Liège in 2017, where his canvases were compared with those of A.R. Penck and Keith Haring, the publication in 2015 of a monograph by Michaël De Plaen (Mode Muntu, l'Homme Modeste), and his presentation in the major "Beauté Congo" exhibition organized at the Fondation CARTIER in Paris in 2016. Provenance: the work was acquired by Professor Gaucquié, a colleague of L. Moonens, both of whom taught at the Académie des Beaux-arts in Elisabethville, then passed on by descent.