Jacques Zigoma (1936-1987) Poto-poto School Brazzaville Congo African Painting

Very beautiful work of the Congolese painter Jacques Zigoma.
In very good condition the colors are bright, and warm, a luxury for the time when painting of this quality was a rare commodity.
 
The painter liked to treat works of everyday life.
With its color palette and schematic shapes, executed like a stained glass window.
This oil on canvas is quite representative of Zigoma’s art from the Poto-Poto school.
The attraction for the works of this school is expanding, the coast of these main artists rises. The Poto-Poto school, with its pioneering role in Africa and its very decorative identity, could experience a surge in the near future.

Dimensions at sight: 37 x 29 cm
Frame dimensions: 46 x 37 cm

Jacques Zigoma (1936-1987)

He is one of the leaders of the Poto-poto school. Pioneer, sometimes described as modernist or surrealist, his work and those of his fellow art students in Brazzaville in the mid-1950s emerged as a leading African artistic vision at a time when Congo was about to become independent from France. Zigoma was born in colonial Congo, Africa, in 1931, and died in the People’s Republic of Congo in 1987. He began taking painting classes with Pierre Lods at the Poto-Poto School of Painting (Poto-Poto School) in Brazzaville, and was included in the Exhibition of Painters of Poto-Poto of the Museum of Modern Art in 1955/56; at the Universal Exhibition, Brussels, 1958; and at the first World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal, 1966, which featured him among the brightest students in Poto-Poto.

In 2014, Zigoma participated in the exhibition "Modernites Plurielles: 1905 - 1970" at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and in the exhibition "From one bank to another" at the Musée du Quai Branly in Beaubourg.His work is preserved in the permanent collection of the Congo Basin Gallery Museum, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo; Musée du Quai Branly, Paris; and Afrika-Haus Freiberg, Germany.
As this beautiful painting shows, the paintings of Jacques Zigoma are signed triple «P» means Painter of Poto-Poto, his work consists of scenes of life in the village, market scenes, stylized masks with bright and warm colors.

POTO POTO SCHOOL

School of painting founded in Brazzaville in 1950 by the painter Pierre Lods (1921-1988), amateur painter and former military, established in 1950 in Brazzaville, that one owes the foundation of an «African Art Workshop» which will take the name of «School of Poto Poto». Pierre Lods had taken to his service in his residence in Brazzaville several Congolese (cook, driver, launderer, etc.). One of them, Félix Ossiali, takes advantage of the absence of his master to steal his brushes and try himself to paint on canvas. Against all odds, while he comes to surprise him, Pierre Lods encourages him to continue his work until he judges it ended according to his own criteria. Dazzled by the talent of his servant, he undertakes the installation of a structure, a kind of experimental laboratory, intended for Congolese artists with no notion of art history. This is the initial credo: support a purely Congolese artistic creation, free of any relation to Western art that is supposed to distort the essence of the African soul. 

This school is at the origin of a current of artistic expression based on the free exploitation of themes drawn from African traditions (market scenes, masks, animals, etc.). It is the genesis of a singular Congolese art center both by its associative mode of operation and by a style of painting illustrated by artists who quickly acquire an international reputation, such as Nicolas Ondongo , François Thango, Marcel Gotene, Jacques Zigoma, François Iloki, Oba, Owassa, Bela, Ngavouka, etc. The Poto-Poto school, which has the status of a private cooperative, is now run by Pierre Claver Ngampio, who succeeded Nicolas Ondongo in 1976.

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