Iba N'Diaye

Estate of Raoul Lehuard (acquired directly from the artist)

Private Collection, Paris

Paris, Piasa, Afrique+Art Moderne et Contemporain, 19 May 2021, lot 06

Acquired from the above auction by the present owner

‘Iba N’Diaye is a member of that very important generation of Africans (artists, intellectuals, writers and academics), the ranks of which include…Ibrahim El Salahi, Skunder Boghossian…amongst others.’

Okwui Enwezor, Iba Ndiaye, peintre entre continents, 2002, p. 8

Iba N'Diaye, born in Saint Louis, Senegal in 1928, emerged as one of the most prominent Senegalese artists of the 20th century. A key member of the École de Dakar, N’diaye was instrumental in shaping the artistic movement of the young nation between 1960s and 1980s. Born out of a 1966 exhibition at the Dakar World Festival of Pan-African Art, Tendances et Confrontation, the École de Dakar played a crucial role in shaping Senegal's artistic landscape during the early years of independence, promoting a unique African artistic identity under Senghor's cultural vision, centred on the embracement of Negritude.

‘Negritude, for N’Diaye’s generation, fashioned a dialectic of creative struggle, which allowed artists to free themselves of the inferiority complex imposed by colonial domination.’

Okwui Enwezor, Iba Ndiaye, peintre entre continents, 2002, p. 8

N’diaye began his studies as a student of architecture in Senegal, before moving to France in 1949 where he pursued art studies first in Montpellier and then later in Paris. During this period, N'Diaye's artistic vision was shaped by contemporary European art trends and the vibrant Parisian jazz scene. Alongside his contemporaries like the famed South African modernist, Gerard Sekoto, N’diaye frequented the jazz clubs of Montmartre and took inspiration from the dark smoke-filled rhythmic rooms.

The present lot is not only an exceptional example of Iba N’diaye’s famed jazz series but is wholly representative of this Senegalese modernist’s unique painterly hand. With its wispy strokes, dark palette, and use of chiaroscuro, Iba N’diaye captures the rhythmic ambiance of the darkened music halls. His technique shows a clear mastery of light and texture that bears a stylistic comparison with that of European masters such as Rembrandt or Velazquez, whilst depicting the great African jazz players of Paris, and in a later series, of the larger black Atlantic (in 1987 Iba N’diaye executed Hommage a Bessie Smith which is held in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art).

Following Senegal's independence in 1960, Iba N'Diaye returned to his homeland at the request of President Léopold Sédar Senghor and assumed a pivotal role as the Director of the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Dakar, a position he held until 19661. However, feeling at odds with the prevailing artistic climate that rejected European influences, favouring a staunchly ‘African’ aesthetic, N'Diaye made the decision to return to Paris in 1967. His artistic style evolved into a unique hybrid of African and European elements, often featuring abstracted forms that blended techniques from 20th-century European art with an African perspective. Iba N’diaye practice would come to define a new ‘African cultural modernity…built around an international framework.’

‘Notably to my young colleagues, I would give several words of advice be on guard against those who insist that you must be ‘Africans’ before being painters or sculptors, for those who in the name of authenticity, which remains to be defined, continue to want to preserve you in an exotic garden. We are the sons of African cities, which were created, for the most part, in the colonial era, and were crucibles of an original culture, in which…foreign or indigenous cultural contributions dominate…it is in this role that you have a great responsibility: to make our profession legitimate in the eyes of our fellow countrymen, and in those of men from all continents.’

Iba N’Diaye, In Senghor’s Shadow: Art, Politics and the Avant-Garde in Senegal, 2004

N'Diaye's work gained international recognition, with exhibitions held across the globe. His artistic legacy was celebrated through two major retrospectives: one at the Museum für Völkerkunde in Munich in 1987, and another at the Museum Paleis Lange Voorhout in The Hague in 1996.

‘Above all, despite his indisputable credentials as one of Africa’s most important and gifted painters of his generation, N’diaye is an artist, or to be more precise, a painter first before he is an African or a Senegalese artist.’

Okwui Enwezor, Iba Ndiaye, peintre entre continents, 2002, p. 8

References :

Enwezor O., Kaiser F-W, Iba Ndiaye, peintre entre continents, 2002, p. 8

Harney E., Iba N’Diaye, In Senghor’s Shadow: Art, Politics and the Avant-Garde in Senegal, 2004

Please note the present lot is one of five known works once belonging to the private collection of Mr. Raoul Lehuard. Other works of the same provenance include N’Diaye’s well known masterpiece, Juan de Pareja agressé par les chiens, which sold at Sotheby’s in 2022.