Chéri Samba

He struggled at first but eventually started out as a sign painter before dedicating himself to his own artworks in 1979. He set up an atelier and connected with other well-established Congolese artists of the time who were in vogue such as Bodo, Mas, Chéri Cherin and Moke. Samba helped establish the genre of Popular Painting, which developed in Kinshasa in the 1970s. His oeuvre aims to examine aspects of daily life. He began to incorporate text into his art, as sign painters did, to attract the eye of the viewer. His messages, aimed at both citizens and politicians, question, critique and call out the world.

Samba's oeuvre was supported by the Fondation Cartier at a very early stage. In 1990, one year after his participation in the iconic exhibition Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Pompidou, Samba was invited for a residency at Jouy-en-Josas by Jean de Loisy, who was then a curator at the Fondation Cartier. His work was subsequently presented at Boulevard Raspail in 2004, in his first solo exhibition there, entitled J’aime Chéri Samba, which included thirty-five paintings. In 2015, Samba was part of the Beauté Congo 1926–2015 Congo Kitoko exhibition, an overview of the history of painting in the modern art movements in the Congo since the 1920s. His work is also regularly featured in the exhibitions of the Fondation Cartier collections.