“Clément Serneels, born in Brussels in [1912], was the son of a Belgian architect. He first visited the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi in 1936-37, though there was initial resistance from the Belgian minister of the Colonies due to the expensive nature of such travels. However, he was eventually granted the necessary finances thanks to the support of Alfred Bastien, the director of the Académie de Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, where Serneels was one of his most brilliant students. Thanks to the success of the first trip, with a sell-out exhibition on his return to Belgium, Serneels travelled back to Central Africa in 1938, this time using his own resources. When World War II broke out, the artist stayed on in Costermansville (modern-day Bukava), on the south-west shores of Lake Kivu in the Belgian Congo.” -Elliot Fine Art
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