Tshibumba Kanda Matulu was born in 1947 in Lubumbashi, under Belgian rule. He originally intended to become a teacher, but his studies were interrupted by the violence following the Katanga secession in 1960. Determined to find an alternative way of educating his community, Tshibumba began to experiment with the medium of paint. His chief aim was to create a visual narrative documenting Congolese history from pre-colonial times to the present. An autodidact, Tshibumba had no formal artistic instruction. He finally established himself as a professional artist in 1969. His output was prodigious until 1981; no further works have appeared since then. It is not clear why the artist su...