Notes

Bela Sara, alternatively referred to by his surname, M’Daye, was the star protégé of the French artist and adventurer Pierre Romain- Desfossé (1887–1954), who established a ground-breaking art project in the former Elizabethville – now Lumbumbashi – in the southern Congo copper belt.

Founded in 1946, Le Hangar was situated in an old aviation shed, where painting, sculpture and ceramics were practised with an emphasis on freedom of expression while honouring the artist’s cultural knowledge and vision. However, it emphatically rejected ‘Western cannons and imposed perspective.’¹ Originally from Chad, Bela Sara moved to the Congo with Desfossé, and his career as a contemporary Congolese artist took off.

The accompanying posed illustration from the owners’ family archive shows the studio at Le Hangar in 1950 with artists busy at work.² On the far-right wall is a fishing tableau by Bela (2nd from right), and another village scene in the artist’s characteristic pointillist style is visible on the far-left. The picture on the floor on the right is the work of Mwenza Kibwanga (1925–1999) who painted with stick and feathers and together with Pilipili Mulongoy (1914–2007) made up the triumvirate known as the Le Hangar stars.

Acclaimed as a dazzling colourist with his unique technique of ‘eschewing the brush’ and only painting with fingertips, Bela’s vast repertoire of beasts, birds, snakes, fish and other gorgeous creatures of the Congo forests and great rivers was snapped up by expatriates, collectors and museums.³

His prolific and timeless work can be found in private and university collections and many museums in Africa and abroad including Quai Branly in Paris, where he exhibited in 1991/2; The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Africa Museum in Tervuuren and the Iziko South African National Gallery amongst others. Bela is well known at auction, and in 2021 Artcurial in Paris sold the work of Bela and two other acclaimed Hangar artists – Mwenza Kibwanga and Pilipili Mulongoy – in a record sale, setting a new standard for 'Congo Modernism’.

The present lot captures a Katanga homestead scene, of relaxed and playful figures amongst vernacular mud and thatch houses (kibanda in KiSwahili)⁴ with airy verandas on wooden poles, most likely culled from the verdant tropical forest background. A tall standing figure plays with a circus-like balancing dog, the sky glowing with the pale of dawn. Golden tones suggest autumn, while the rhythmic rush roofs induce a beautifully calm vignette, an idyll that belies the surrounding turmoil. —Carol Kaufmann, February 2024.

^1. Yolande Valois (2020) Entre les lignes, Il s’appelait Bela (His Name was Bela), online, https://www. entreleslignes.be/humeurs/il-sappelait-bela/, accessed 21 February 2024.
^2. Photo C Lamote, Congopresse 1950. Courtesy of the Hins Family Collection, Brussels.
^3. Yolande Valois (2020) Entre les lignes, Il s’appelait Bela (His Name was Bela), online, https://www. entreleslignes.be/humeurs/il-sappelait-bela/, accessed 21 February 2024.
^4. Thanks to Tusevo Landu and Jean–Bedel for this information.

Provenance

Acquired from the atelier of Pierre Romain-Desfossés, circa 1940s, by a senior Civil Engineer resident in Elizabethville (Lumbumbashi), and thence by descent to the current owner.