Artists have been always at the forefront of
rediscovering the amazing creations of great
artists from Africa. Since the painter André
Derain discovered the genious of African artists
in 1904, exhibitions focusing on the demanding
aesthetic choices of Western artists started with
the ground-breaking exhibition Arts primitifs
dans les ateliers d’artistes curated by Marcel
Evrard at the Musée de l’Homme, Paris in 1967
to the publication of the fascinating book Henry
Moore at the British Museum, and publications
of the African art collections of German artists
Georg Baselitz and Fritz Koenig.1
More than twenty-five years ago, a very small
group of less than a dozen statues attributed to
the Dinka appeared on the art market. This Dinka
style was unknown and certainly did not fit into
the classical tastes of the times. These unusual
works of art attracted the eye of David Henrion,
a Belgian artist whose father was a renowned
sculptor who also built a small but distinctive
African art collection.2
