Jacques Zigoma, 1931-1987
Biography

Jacques Zigoma was born in 1931 in the Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) — some sources give 1936 — and died in 1987. In the mid-1950s he trained under Pierre Lods, the French artist who in 1951 founded the École de Peinture de Poto-Poto in Brazzaville, going on to become one of the leading figures of the movement.

Zigoma's paintings depict scenes of village life, market crowds and stylised masks, rendered in bright, warm colour and schematic, hard-edged shapes that critics have likened to stained glass. His work has been described as pioneering within the school, at times veering toward the modernist or surrealist, and like his contemporaries he signed his paintings with the initials “PPP” (Peintres de Poto-Poto).

He represented the Poto-Poto school at the Exposition Universelle in Brussels in 1958 and at the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar in 1966, and his paintings have since been shown at the Centre Pompidou and the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. His work is held in museum collections in Brazzaville, Paris and Freiberg, Germany.

source: Annex Galleries; Proantic; African Contemporary essay on the Poto-Poto School