Modern African Art Circa 1960 Michel Gotène Poto-poto Congo Brazzaville

Large acrylic on fabric representing a floral composition animated by a bird. Original work by Marcel Gotene Signed lower right and countersigned on the back "Gotene Marcel 23 rue Kouyou 23 poto-poto Brville" Black fabric mounted on stretcher 65 x 120 cm Dimensions at sight 64 x 118 cm Sold in its gilded wooden frame . I can be reached for any request Shipping quote on simple request. Marcel Gotène, born in 1939 in Yaba, in the Abala district, and died on February 20, 2013 in Rabat, Morocco, is a contemporary Congolese painter, screen printer and upholsterer. He comes from the Poto-Poto School of painters. Biography Marcel Gotène was born in 1935 or 1939 in Yaba, in the Plateaux region in the center of the Republic of Congo. He joined Brazzaville at the age of 8, taken in by a member of his family. His talent in painting manifested itself very early in his childhood when he began to paint or perhaps draw on his own, with charcoal on various surfaces (walls, cardboard, wood, paper, etc.). From then on, his immediate entourage – his family – who had little knowledge of art, worried about his future. However, the men of the other world (the artists) felt in him the ultimate heir of art. At Mabirou primary school, he already thought more about them than about his lessons, not because he wasn't intelligent, but his mind was elsewhere: near the river and the crocodile, in the banana plantation or on the way to the market, behind the women whose hundred copper rings on their arms and legs fascinated him with their tchooki tchooki. In 1951, upon the death of his father, his mother entrusted him to his cousin in Poto-Poto (Brazzaville), where he worked at the age of twelve on a construction site as a mortar mixer. His artistic instinct guides him towards the painting workshops; This is how he often directs his steps towards the Poto-Poto School where the French painter Pierre Lods provides him with tubes of paint and drawing paper. Lods does not give him any precise instructions, his attention being to allow each Congolese who intends to paint a free expression of his temperament. “Do what you want, what you see” is the only precept he remembers from the creator of The School of Poto-Poto. Two years after his entry into this crucible of Congolese painting, Marcel Gotène held his first exhibition at the Brazzaville fair in 1953. In 1953, he distanced himself from the Poto-Poto School to launch himself in a solitary adventure. As the results were not immediate, in 1954 he experienced a moment of discouragement: he abandoned painting for a position as orderly at Comilog. The nine months that this prosaic activity lasted were not entirely fruitless. Towards the middle of the year, a decorative style is discovered with a mixture of masks, trees, lianas, monkeys, all subject to the empire of color. The following years will only confirm the good colorist he already is. His painting is beginning to arouse some interest.