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In 1917, the Belgian artist Paul Joostens (1889–1960) created a large-scale, semi-figurative, “Cubo-Expressionist” collage, which was documented in a photograph by the Antwerp-based writer Robert Guiette (see below). According to this photograph, which shows Joostens seated to the left, the collage measured some five feet high by six feet long. A drawing by Joostens of 1917 (also shown below) depicts an ascending figure with supplicant figures below, a composition echoed in the large-scale collage. At some point after 1941, Joostens cut the large collage into multiple pieces. The fragment in our collection originally appeared at top center, oriented vertically. It encompassed the ascending figure’s ovoid head. When it was extracted from the large collage, it was rotated forty-five degrees clockwise, thereby transforming it into a fully abstract composition, and signed and dated along the bottom edge. In 2014, when the MuZee in Ostend, Belgium, published their Joostens oeuvre catalogue, fourteen fragments (including this one) were identified. Since that time others have come to light in various collections and on the art market.
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