Last Saturday, we opened our new curated exhibition in Antwerp: “Echoes”. One of the show’s key works is a bronze cast of “Perle Fine” by Oscar Jespers (1887-1970). The original was sculpted in marble in 1925 and is on view in the recently reopened KMSKA museum – as shown below. We are excited about our collaboration with Geukens & De Vil, who were able to source several major artworks for the second version of “Echoes”, now on view until April 20th. After a successful first edition last year at the Belgian seaside, we decided to also add a historical part, including works by three famous Belgian modernists who were inspired by classical African art.
Oscar Jespers is one of Belgium’s most important sculptors of the 20th century, and he himself considered “Perle Fine” to be one of his masterpieces. With its combination of realism and stylized abstraction, it visibly echoes classical African sculptures, first and foremost the face masks of Ivory Coast’s Baule peoples. The slit eyes, elongated thin nose, and diminutive mouth are hallmark visual elements of the masks of the Baule, that also inspired Amadeo Modigliani’s stone heads of a decade earlier – see for example this head in the collection of the Minneapolis Museum of Art.
“Perle Fine”’s smoothness of the face and the textured, incised treatment of the hair are other features common to Baule masks, as presented in two first-rate examples on view at “Echoes” – more info here and here. Jesper’s positioning of the eyes close to the top of the elongated nose is another typically Baule stylistic trait. As these masks often functioned as secular portraits of living individuals within a community, their anonymous makers can somehow be considered as portraitists themselves – creating another echoe with the work of the Belgian artists on view.
There can thus be no doubt that classical African art was one of the major influences in the formation of Jespers’ style. His first encounter with the art of the continent came through his close friend Constant Permeke (1886-1952). Friends since 1920, it was Permeke who introduced Jespers to African art, which he had started collecting after studying the roots of cubism.
Hundred years after its creation, we’re very proud to exhibit Permeke’s 1924 painting “Primitive Heads” at the second edition of “Echoes”. A key example of African art’s profound influence on his practice, it is the first time presented together with two Baule masks and Jesper’s “Perle Fine”. Close by, a small etching from Frits Van den Berghe (1883-1939), presents a cute work by another Flemish expressionist who collected African art. Just as this drawing in the MSK Museum in Ghent, the influence of the continent’s art was profound and lasting, indicative of Africa’s echoes in Western Art history.