Maurice Van Essche. Dancer From The Luba Tribe (congo). 1940. Charcoal.

Dimensions: with frame 65 x 54 cm. without frame 52 x 40 cm. Charcoal drawing.
Signed, dated 40 and titled dancer Bakwa-mputu. (Tribe of Luba, Congo).
Maurice Van Essche (1906-1977).
Belgian painter, student of James Ensor, studies at the Brussels academy. In 1930, he joined the group of La Jeune Peinture Belge and at an international exhibition in Antwerp, he won a medal money. In 39, he was sent to the Belgian Congo by the government to paint there. He exhibited in Léopoldville and Elizabethville. Prevented from returning to Belgium, following the German invasion, he decided to emigrate to South Africa. In 1946, he founded the Continental School of Arts. After the war he exhibited in Léopoldville, in 1948, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the BCK railway, where four of his paintings were acquired by the Belgian government. In 1952 he was appointed professor at the Michaelis Arts School at the University of Cape Town and in 1965 as dean. He will exhibit in many countries and a retrospective in 1967 will be devoted to him in Cape Town. He was considered one of the greatest painter of South Africa.