MWENZE KIBWANGA [Kilumba (DRC), 1925-1999, Lubumbashi (DRC)] (Untitled) Two pirogues Oil on canvas. 66 x 101 cm. Signed lower left, framed, circa 1950. Multiple craquelures, no loss to the paint layer. Mwenze Kibwanga, born in 1925 in Kilumba, Katanga province. In 1934, he began attending classes at the Protestant mission in Mwanza, where he also took drawing lessons. He left the village in 1942 to settle in Elisabethville, where he continued his basic education with the Methodists. In 1950, Kibwanga joined the Atelier du Hangar, founded by the French painter Romain-Desfossés. There he developed his style, bringing his subjects to life with a technique of hatching and parallel lines alternating between light and dark tones that followed the shapes of people, animals and vegetation.