Drawing on paper by Guilherme Marques – Titled: An African woman on the market, circa 1930

Original Charcoal drawing on paper by Guilherme Marques; An African woman on the market circa 1930-1940

Drawing on paper is signed in Pencil on the lower left by the artist.​

Dimension: 21.5 x 30.5 cm.

With frame: 33 x 44 cm

Price: *$ CAD (Canadian dollars) – For more information on artist or artwork contact the gallery

Guilherme MARQUES (1887-1960)

Guilherme d’Oliveira Marques or said Guilherme Marques is a Portuguese painter and sculptor born in Brazil on October 12 in 1887. He is considered one of the fathers of African painting and Africanism of the 20th century.

As a teenager, Marques moved to the Belgian Congo and lived and worked in Leopoldville, now Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He is fascinated by landscapes and the Congolese life. He paints local scenes, and also creates wooden sculptures. He has drawn numerous sketches in order to be illustrated and published. He was prolific, he made many paintings, we speak about more than 152 paintings as well as sculptures of characters in wood, engravings and sketches.

Less well known about him is that he is a very good portraitist, much appreciated by the missionaries who regularly organize exhibitions for him, and praises his poetry in his works and his striking portraits. This allows him to be asked to make portraits of colonial dignitaries and politicians as well as artists and writers and among others the painter Allard l’Olivier.

In the 1930s, he worked for a weekly polyglot newspaper called, Cosmo-Kin, whose first number was printed on Sunday, January 4, 1931.

Guilherme Marques died in Kinshasa, on May 15, 1960 and is buried in the cemetery of the Ngombe.

Sources: Translation of French Wikipedia and additions Y. Ysebaert and archives of the gallery.

Stele to the bruised splendor of the painter Allard l’Olivier; Illustrated with a portrait of Allard l’Olivier by Guilherme d’Olivaira Marques. Leopoldville: The Courrier d’Afrique, 1933, 20 p.

The Lotus leaves. Seven stories; Illustrated by G.O. Marques. Leopoldville: Cosmo-Kin, 1934, 63 p. (H.C.)

Africanists, traveling painters: 1860-1960; by Lynne Thornton