FOCUS ON PAN-CULTURE ABIDJAN : THE RETURN OF A GREAT SON OF AFRICA Author : Wladyslaw Szezerbic Polish Correpsondent in Ghana The heavy, burning afternoon, I found myself in the very heart of the colourful and noisy Treichville - the « Black » town of beautiful Abidjan. In the gateway which leads to the broad courtyard of an autocar workshop, I discovered an ordinary wooden board half-covered with green leaves and with a black inscription : « TIBERIO » on it. Near a well in the coutyard, a group of African children were pouring streams of cool water on themselves. How delighted they were ! The appearance of a white wanderer however interrupted their agreeable occupation : « Tiberio ? Oh, he lives there, on the first floor near the garage. Take care on the stairs » - they warned me kindly. I scaled the exterior stairs along the wall of garage from whiche cam the purt of the motors and the noise of the workers'tools. From the wooden gallery, along the first floor, on gets the enchanting view of the blue lagoon, the sea-front and the white-green pyramid of the « European » Abidjan. I egin now to understand why it is exactly here that... But I am interrupted by a strong « Hallo » exclaimed by one of the greatest artist - painters of African today. My host, is a 39 year old tall man with an inseparable round straw-hat on his head. On his black face beamed a good, friendly smile. After somme conversation, Tiberio went back to his painting. I took a seat in the corner of his atelier-sleeping room, on a hard camping-bed and listened to the story of his life. This « black soberer of paint-brush »-as an Italian critic named him- was born in Brazil. Since his childhood, he dreamt of coming back to Africa his forefathers' soll, from which they were taken away by force to the North and South-American plantations. Since his earliest years he had fallen in love with painting. His parents were not able to help him very much in this his father was a blacksmith, his mother a dressmaker. Obstinacy, strong will and talent -great talent- spurred him on. Seventen-year-old Tiberio earned his livehood, as an interior painter and at the same time enrolled as an « extra-mural student » at the Academy of Arts in Rio de Janeiro. His talent soon won him the attention of his professors and ultimately he was awarded a scholarship to Paris. NATURAL BRIDGE It was precisely in Paris -at the Museum de l'Homme- that he had his first shock : admiring the products of African art -strange masks, full of symbolic meaning ; gracious statutes and figures, beautiful chiefs regalia and the popular handicrafts ; he found a natural bridge between the country of his childhood (where African customs were still cultivated) and the motherland of his forefathers. Tiberio here and then decided to come back to the very source of his art - to Africa. He made his first trip to Africa in 1948 during which he visited Senegal, Sudan (now Mali) and Dahomey. In a simple native canoe he sailed down the great Niger River, he marched many miles by foot through the wide dusty savannah. With every day he saw better the drama that was taking place throughout the continent of Africa. Every step during this pilgrimage brought him nearer to his African brothers. His behaviour aroused the suspicion of the French colonial administration. Soon a pretext for his ejection from the area was found ; when because he tried to free a young African boy from the grips of a French colonial police constable. Tberio was brought bak to Dakar, where he was detained in the garage of the Brazilian Consulate and later brought -in handcuffs- on a ship and deported to Marseille, France. Tberio stopped painting for a moment, a sad smile lighting up his face. « you see Wladyslaw, how history repeats itself -he said. Once my forefathers were shipped from Dakar, from the illfamed slave-island of Goree, over the Great Ocean. And they never came back. The same happened to me in the middle of the 20th Century. With one difference anyway in my case. I very soon came back. I came back to Africa which has now become almost completely free. I desire so much to help with my art, in some way, to accelerate Africa's revolutionary march. » Tiberio has always remainded absolutely loyal to this vocation, he gave all his great talent, all his enthusiasm to the task ; Back in Paris, he created a series of paintings which represent a moving epic of Black Africa. I went through the reproductions and ......there was not a single landscape among them ! His paintings represent the African being. Tiberio praises in his art the African soul, ils fortunes ans misfortunes, the exhausting work, the vivifying and secretful music, le powerful expression of dances, the courage and the wisdom of his black brothers, the beauty of the African soil and of the African people. This « best interpreter of the black world » (as he is named by a Parisian critic) shows in his paintings -and also in his sculptures- with mastery all aspects of the African life : the romantic dream of a young black girl and the deep sorrow of the unhappy people, the cruel sort of those who suffer pains in forced labour, the tenderness of an African mother, the captivating beauty of the black children playing on the red-hot soil. Tiberio is world-famous. Thousands of people admire his works which have been exhibited in Paris, Nice, Moscow, Peking, Rio de Janeiro, Amsterdam. And also in Africa -in his Africa ! The first country in his actual African trip was Abidjan, the secon Niger, the third ... perhaps Ghana ? I have read articles about Tiberio art in different newspapers of the wordl. The Parisian Figaro, the Russan Sowjetskaja Kultura, the Brazilian Il Globo and the Chinese Zenminzipao are all of the same opinion : Tiberio is a great artist with a deep human heart ; a man whise great talent and noble realism in his art is moving and understandable to everybody. If, host puts off his paintbrush. But befor we get out into the gay and poor streets of Treichville, he shows me the strongest accent of his work : the political spearhead of his art ; the paintings which are full of tension and of hard, many sacrifices costing struggle, but which at the end will be crowned by victory for the African people. Some of his paintings are : « Africa throws off its handcuffs. », « hanged from Kenya », « Slave Work » and « Lumumba's Murder.3 Tiberio is modest and direct. He is a great friend. He likes wine and long nightly talks with friends of which he has many in Treichville, the poor African quarter of the rich and beautiful Abidjan. He has got a lot of them all over the world. With a movin g joy he shows me words of admiration written by African visitors of his exhibition in Abidjan. Among them in an ordinary modest copy-book was the following inscription : « THE WHOLE OF AFRICA IS AWAITING YOUR PAINTINGS BECAUSE YOU ARE SUCH A GREAT ARTIST. I THANK YOU, GREAT TIBERIO ! AN AFRICAN TEACHER INF TREICHVILLE-ABIDJAN. 
Africa :oil on canvas 1,50x1,10m private collection |
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The kiss : lithograph 44x60cm private collection |
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Washerwoman : gouache 60x46cm private collection |
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Saint Louisienne : oil on canvas 2mx70cm private coll. |
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Portrait of Lena: oil on cardboard 63x48cm |
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Silhouettes : oil on canvas 126x84cm |
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Women in the mirror : oil on canvas private collection |
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