Mwenze Kibwanga

Born in 1925 in Kilumba, Katanga Province.
Died in 1999 in Lubumbashi, Katanga Province.

He was part of the Hangar workshop in the 1950s.

The son of a weaver, Mwenze Kibwanga began his education at the Protestant mission in Mwanza (Katanga Province) in 1934, where he received drawing lessons. In 1942, he moved to Elisabethville, where he studied for two years with the Methodists before earning a living primarily by drawing portraits. He soon abandoned this style after joining the Hangar workshop. There, he developed his own distinctive aesthetic, alternating between dark and light hatching to depict humans, animals, and plants. He termed this approach “sculptural painting,” drawing inspiration from traditional sculptors.

Following the death of Pierre-Romain Desfossés, he joined the Elisabethville Academy of Fine Arts alongside Pilipili Mulongoy and Sylvestre Kaballa. Unlike Bela and Pilipili Mulongoy, Kibwanga focused on the human figure, integrating a personal sentiment into his paintings and moving beyond mere representation.