Henri Séné, Brazzaville, The Congo River In 1929. Africa

Henri Séné (1889 - 1961)
Landscape at Brazzaville, the banks of the Congo River.
Oil on canvas, located and dated 1929.
Very good condition.
Frame dimensions: 86 x 73 cm
Canvas dimensions: 73 x 60 cm
Henri Séné, born in 1889 in Pont-Rémy, Picardy, and died in 1961, was destined by his parents for a career in engineering.
At 16, he ran away from the École des Arts et Métiers in Châlons-sur-Marne, rushed to enroll at the École des Beaux-Arts under Cormon, and began exhibiting at antique shops in Provins.
His youth was marked by grand historical and religious themes: (Roland at Roncevaux and Christ Mocked are now in the Musée d'Amiens).
Then it was the landscape that attracted him, the delicate light of the Picardy plain, the sun sculpting the powerful forms of oxen and draft horses: so many notes of truth at a time when naturalism was dying.
A great traveler, Séné spent long periods in North Africa; his Orientalist period is significant in his work. He was later sent to Bolivia by the French government as head of the workshop at the School of Fine Arts in La Paz.