Antoinette Lubaki

Pretty Brilliant Women in the Arts

Article

No. 38 • June 2025

For generations, the story of art has been told through a singular lens. When the first editions of canonical books like Janson’s History of Art and Gombrich’s The Story of Art were published, they featured zero women artists. The Pretty Brilliant: Women in the Arts series aims to make whole what has long been a one-sided story. In these issues, featuring 583 artists, we celebrate women who have always been creating, innovating, and inspiring, like Antoinette Lubaki.

Fig 1. Antoinette Lubaki

text: Theo Paijmans

Modern art was born in Congo through the work of Congolese watercolourist Antoinette Lubaki (Congo, 1894-date of death unknown). She is now recognised as one of the very few pioneering modern Congolese artists. Lubaki worked during Belgium’s colonial rule of Congo, and amidst that dark period, her own life was remarkably distinctive. As the daughter of a village chief, she was occasionally addressed with the honorific title ‘princess’.

In the 1920s, a Belgian traveller passing through her village was so impressed by the drawings she and her husband had created on hut walls – using charcoal, coloured earth, minerals and clay – that he encouraged the couple to transfer their artistic practice to paper. Around this time, Lubaki began painting and signing her works as ‘Antoinet’.

Fig 2. Antoinette Lubaki, Untitled, c. 1929, watercolor on paper, 55 x 73 cm, Collection Pierre Loos, Bruxelles | © Albert Lubaki, photo: Michael De Plaen

‘The Lubakis started making watercolours at night, as cultural practices dictated that no stories were allowed to be told during the day.’

Her oeuvre is predominantly figurative, depicting scenes of everyday life, the surrounding natural world and animals, as well as local legends, sagas, proverbs and dreams. It is said that she and her husband painted by candlelight after nightfall because Congolese tradition forbade the recounting of legends or fables before sunset.

Antoinette Lubaki’s work had been exhibited throughout Europe since 1929, sometimes trading for considerable sums without her knowledge. Due to the colonial administration’s indifference and racism, her presence gradually faded from records, as did most of her remarkably colourful, inventive and powerful paintings and drawings.

Antoinette Lubaki is featured in See All This #38: Pretty Brilliant Women in the Arts Vol. III. Order a copy here.