Edouard TSHILOLO Untitled, circa 1950 Gouache... Lot 1

Edouard TSHILOLO Untitled, circa 1950 Gouache on paper signed on the side, and bearing on the back the stamp of the Acadélie des Beaux-Arts et des Métiers d'Arts d'Elisabethville 27.8 x 44.7 cm Provenance: Private Collection, France Tshilolo, Muntu Fashion Companion "Laurent Moonens taught painting to Europeans and Congolese side by side in a corner of the Leopold II Museum, thus founding the country's first mixed school. He first recruits his students through classified ads, then spots three particularly talented teenagers in the schools of the Union Minière complex. As an experiment, he set them up in the back of his garden and encouraged them to paint without technical constraints or models. Total freedom is intended to stimulate their spontaneity and protect their authenticity, especially in the use of colours with a finesse that the teacher considered innate. Although his students regularly join him to learn his techniques, Moonens never teaches the European way. On the contrary, he strives to reveal theirs above all. In addition to this artistic teaching, he also works to develop in these young people a professional ideal and an idea of the value of their status as artists (...) (extract from Mode Muntu, Prismes Edition, 2015, page 30) Edouard Tshilolo joined forces with painters such as Mode Muntu and Jean-Bosco Kamba to set up the Academy of Fine Arts, also known as the "Elisabethville School", founded in 1951 by a Belgian artist, Laurent Moonens, to welcome young artists.