Pierre Dartevelle and tribal art. Memory and continuity

'Les arts primordiaux', as the author himself defines them, have been the cornerstone and passion of his life. And everything about his daily life expresses just this: the shelves overflowing with books and catalogues on extra-European art, the statues, the masks, and the way all this material is piled up in no particular order, blocking our view in every direction and preventing us from seeing any sort of background in the rooms. There is no doubting what makes Pierre Dartevelle get up in the morning.

He has devoted fifty years to getting African art's status recognized in Brussels, where in 1967 he opened a gallery in impasse Saint Jacques at the Grand Sablon, which soon achieved international renown. A lawyer by training and a great traveler by inclination, he abandoned law to give free course to his personal passion, in the footsteps of his father, Edmond Dartevelle, an explorer in his own right and scientist, whose finds in the Congo built the collection of the Musée d'Afrique centrale, in Tervuren. Viewed today by his followers and peers as an 'icon', Pierre Dartevelle has always taken an active interest in preserving the artistic and ancestral heritage of Africa. He has built or expanded some of the most important private and public collections of tribal art known to this day, such as the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac (Paris) and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.