HENRI VAN STRAETEN (Anvers, 1892 - 1944) AFRICANIST... Lot 45

HENRI VAN STRAETEN (Anvers, 1892 - 1944) AFRICANIST COMPOSITION Embossed copper Artist's stamp on the right side 20,5 x 40,5 cm Particularly famous in Belgium for having renewed the art of woodcutting, Henri van Straeten achieves here a real work of brasswork. The copper plate is indeed cold worked with repoussé in order to bring out the reliefs on the face. This technique, inherited from Antiquity, found a new lease of life in the Art Deco period, thanks to such famous artists as Jean Dunand (1877-1942) and Claudius Linossier (1893-1953). Antiquity was not the only source of inspiration for Van Straeten. He was also inspired by Africanism, the passion for sub-Saharan art that arose at the beginning of the 20th century. The spirit that animates it - a naked woman framed by two fetishes - also recalls the photographs taken by Man Ray (1890-1976) in the 1920s and 1930s (cf. Unidentified person naked, Bamiléké statuette from Cameroon, ca. 1934, gelatine-silver print, Paris, MNAM - Centre Pompidou).