Lot 144: Modou Niang (Senegalese, born 1945) Woman pounding 83 7/16 x 29 1/2in (212 x 75cm)

Woman pounding
signed and dated 'M Niang 68' (lower left); bears certificate of authenticity (verso)
tapestry
83 7/16 x 29 1/2in (212 x 75cm)

"I am driven by instinct. I paint spontaneously in front of the paper. I cannot describe to you what I am going to do. I paint and the work practically draws itself...Even up to the present time, I paint what I feel. The artistic currents that are passing around me have nothing to do with me. It is just spontaneity. I know no other painter." (the artist, as quoted in Grabski 2006)

Modou Niang benefited enormously from the support of Senegal's first government, under Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906-2001). The administration provided travel scholarships and studios, and regularly collected the artists' work for the state collection. Senghor initiated the first Festival des Arts Nègres in Dakar in 1966, in which Modou Niang participated.

Modou Niang worked as a draughtsman at the Manufacture National des Tapisseries, where his drawings were transferred to the medium of tapestry. A substantial number of these works were purchased by the government, which later offered them as state gifts or displayed them as hallmarks of national identity in its many ministries and embassies abroad. One such work, N'Daanaan, is in the collection of UNESCO.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
J. Grabski, 'Painting Fictions/painting History: Modernist Pioneers at Senegal's Ecole Des Arts' in African Arts, Vol. 39, 2006