"Cristo Negro de Esquipulas"

A brilliant and lively depiction of a crowded cafe scene in 1945, this painting by Adalie Margules Brent depicts a slice of Black America at the end of World War II, probably in New Orleans, complete with a waiter, fashionably dressed men and women and wafts of cigarette smoke...

Alois De Laet grew up in the Schipperskwartier in Antwerp, where his mother ran a café. De Laet was initially more interested in music. He took lessons from Peter Benoit and played the piano in his mother's café. As a painter he was self-taught. In 1900 he was the first to exhibit at the social philosophical movement 'De Kapel'. There he met artists such as Eugeen Van Mieghem and Henry Van de Velde. De Laet called himself one of the first Antwerp socialist artists. After the First World War he achieved success with his landscapes of the Kalmhoutse Heide and the Antwerp polders. He was a member of various art circles, including Eenigen, Als ik Kan, de Scalden, La Libre Esthétique and Vie et Lumière...