About this artwork
As the title implies, this work refers to the Congo and the barbaric exploitation by King Leopold of Belgium against the country’s indigenous people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Haile was extremely politically engaged and became increasingly exasperated with politics throughout Europe in the late 1930s. Painted in dark browns and black, it may at first seem to show a tree with slash marks in it. (The Congo – or Congo Free State as it then was - was a Belgian colony, and one of its particular riches was rubber, made by cutting through the bark of the rubber tree; much of this work was done with forced labour.) However, closer inspection shows that this form is actually a native who has been strung up, viciously whipped, and who seems to have already lost a leg.
Updated before 2020
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artist:
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title:Non Payment of Taxes, Congo, Christian Era
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date created:1937
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materials:Oil on canvas
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measurements:76.30 x 51.10 cm; Framed: 87.50 x 62.50 x 4.20 cm
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object type:
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credit line:Purchased 2006
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accession number:GMA 4816
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gallery:
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subject:
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artwork photographed by:Antonia Reeve
Sam Haile
Sam Haile
Haile was born in London and left school at the age of fifteen to work at a shipping firm. He attended evening classes at Clapham School of Art and in 1931 won a scholarship to study painting at the Royal College of Art. However, he later transferred to study pottery, believing that his attitude...