José DE GUIMARAES (1939), 'Personnage vert et serpent bleu', mixed technique on canvas, signed lower right and dated 1989. H. 62 x 50 cm José Maria Fernandes Marques was born in the town of Guimaraes in Portugal, from which he took his name. After studying engineering and taking courses in engraving and painting, he travelled around Europe, discovering the pictorial traditions of Paris and Rome. In 1967, he went to Angola as part of a military service commission. His discovery of African art, and its anthropological and symbolic study, had an unconditional influence on his work as an artist. Fascinated by its ritual and animist significance, José de Guimaraes began collecting African art objects, and then, as his travels took him, pre-Columbian and Asian art. His own works, symbolic forms and multicultural alphabets, are charged with a syncretic power that gives them a magical significance. Provenance: Catherine Clerc-de Goumoëns Collection