A Congolese woman

Henri Kerels was professor of engraving at the academy of his home town, Moolenbeeck-Saint-Jean. He illustrated Contes d'Afrique by the colonial writer Olivier de Bouveignes, for whom he also made woodcuts influenced by African sculpture. In 1929, Kerels was commissioned by the Ministry of Colonies to make an artistic repertory of the different ethnic groups in the Belgian Congo. Thanks to Kerels, who had a great admiration for Africans, a commission was later created for the protection and renovation of Congolese arts and crafts. Author of two colonial novels L'arret au Carrefour (1936) and Comme tant d'autres (1937), he took part in colonial exhibitions in Paris (1931) and Naples (1934), as well as the Brussels Universal and International Exhibition (1935). He returned to Africa in 1939. In 1950, he abandoned figurative painting for tachism abstraction.