Object Details
- Label Text
- Tshibumba Kanda-Matulu gained international notice by painting popular genre scenes in Lubumbashi from the late 1960s until his disappearance in the early 1980s. Inspired to create a complete visual history of his country, Tshibumba asked anthropologist Johannes Fabian to sponsor the project and subsequently completed a hundred paintings from 1974 to 1976. Fabian published this cycle of paintings, and Tshibumba returned to these themes for other patrons.
- Tshibumba and his compatriots repeatedly explored the subject of their country's history as a Belgian colony. Here, a colonial officer supervises a Congolese soldier who beats a prisoner while the prostrate man's weeping wife watches from the distance. In the background, other prisoners work under duress and carry buckets of human excrement. Tshibumba's powerful images convey attitudes towards the traumas and tragedies of Congo's colonial history more than they document any specific event.
- Description
- Three large figures dominate this painting on canvas, inscribed Colonie Belge 1885-1959. A man in the striped shirt of a prisoner lies face-down on the ground. His exposed buttocks reveal the lash marks of the flogging he is in the process of receiving at the hands of the centrally-placed policeman dressed in a colonial-era uniform and wielding a whipping cane. To his right stands a white man--likely a Belgian colonial administrator--depicted in uniform and smoking a pipe. Prisoners engage in work in the background; one lowers his shorts to prepare for flogging. Two women are seated at the right. An inscription on the building in the background to the right identifies the police barracks and prison in the district or town of Sakania. The subject matter reflects the servitude and brutality against the Congolese, including regular floggings at prisons, which occurred during the period of Belgian colonial rule. It is signed in the lower left corner by the artist.
- Provenance
- Ambassador Edward Marks, Washington, collected from the artist in Lubumbashi, Shaba province, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1974-1976 to 2007
- Exhibition History
- African Mosaic: Selections from the Permanent Collection, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 19, 2013–August 12, 2019 (deinstalled February 19, 2014)
- African Mosaic: Celebrating a Decade of Collecting, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 19, 2010-November 13, 2013
- Content Statement
- As part of our commitment to accessibility and transparency, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art is placing its collection records online. Please note that some records are incomplete (missing image or content descriptions) and others reflect out-of-date language or systems of thought regarding how to engage with and discuss cultural heritage and the specifics of individual artworks. If you see content requiring immediate action, we will do our best to address it in a timely manner. Please email nmafacuratorial@si.edu if you have any questions.
- Image Requests
- High resolution digital images are not available for some objects. For publication quality photography and permissions, please contact the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at https://africa.si.edu/research/eliot-elisofon-photographic-archives/
- Data Source
- National Museum of African Art
- Maker
- Tshibumba Kanda-Matulu, 1947-ca. 1981, Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Date
- ca. 1974-1976
- Credit Line
- Gift of Ambassador and Mrs. Edward Marks
- Medium
- Paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- H x W: 47.8 x 53.1 cm (18 13/16 x 20 7/8 in.)
- Type
- Painting
