Oil on panel
1942
Signed, dated and located
54.5 x 44.5cm
Like his fellow Belgian painter Clément Serneels, Paul Sortet studied at the Brussels Academy and went thereafter to Africa. Likely sent on a scholarship by the Ministry of Colonies, he lived and travelled in the Belgian Congo from 1939. The outbreak of the war led to him being unable to return to Belgium however such was his connection to Africa that he remained there, in Rwanda, until 1961.
This present work was painted in Kigali in the Belgian Congo during World War II in 1942. He shows off his ability, here, to capture the character of the local people, with the sitter’s inner strength and dignified nobility clear for the viewer to see.
