Wrought copper low-relief depicting African scenes with cubist figures

Embossed copper panel by the acclaimed Zaïre artist Gabriel Kalumba Tshung Manu (1940-2019), worked in Congo between 1960s-1985s.

This low-relief depicting African scenes with cubist figures and is signed “Kalumba Tshung-Manu” (lower right).
Kalumba was passionate by copper and influenced by his popular African culture.

Gabriel Kalumba Tshung Manu brass drummer and brass maker, he won the Grand Prix at the World Festival of Negro Arts in 1966 in Dakar, Senegal, in the Plastic Arts category.
Gabriel Kalumba, born in 1940 is the grandson of a traditional sculptor, his father was an ivoirier.
After his humanities, he studied Fine Arts in Lubumbashi then brasswork in Maredsous (Belgium), before introducing the technique to Zaire (current Democratic Republic of Congo).
In 1966, at the initiative of the president and poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, the first "World Festival of Negro Arts" organized in Dakar (Senegal), was created.
Personalities from all walks of life took part: Aimé Césaire, Jean Price-Mars, Duke Ellington, Joséphine Baker, and many others. All the arts were represented: plastic arts, literature, music, dance, cinema, etc.
In the "Contemporary Plastic Arts" category, a young Zairian from Lubumbashi, Gabriel Kalumba Tshung Manu, brass drummer exhibited his monumental brass and won a grand prize.