At the same time that the inaugural openingceremonies at the Musée du Quai Branly weretaking place in Paris, Anne Leurquin, an impas-sioned and dedicated specialist in non-Westerncultures, passed away in Brussels, far too soonand too young. Her curiosity was a driving forcefrom her childhood on, and throughout her life,study of distant cultures consumed her. With adegree in art history and archaeology from theUniversité Libre de Bruxelles, she was, accord-ing to her teacher Roland Tefnin, the chair of theMiddle Eastern and Egyptian art and archaeol-ogy department, the most brilliant student hehad ever had.

Anne had the gift of great intelligence and anunusually good memory. She was fascinatedwith the East, and in particular with Byzantium,as well as with Africa. She chose the Yorubadeity Eshu as the subject for her master’s disser-tation, which was published in 1980 by Artsd’Afrique Noire. Luc de Heusch and Marie-Louise Bastin, whose student she was, undoubt-edly influenced that choice. Marie-Lou, or“Mama Chokwe” as Anne sometimes affection-ately referred to her, had great admiration forthis young student and become her friend. Shehoped Anne might one day succeed her in heracademic chair.

Anne thought for a time about pursuing sucha career. In 1983 she left for Burkina Faso, trav-elling to a Winye village in the Gurunsi area,which was to be the research site for a planneddoctoral dissertation. Adventurous and littleconcerned with the sanitary precautions neces-sary in such an area, she had to cut her workshort after a few months for health reasons.However, she returned with a wealth of notesand photographs and in recent years she hadintended to use these in a publication.

She abandoned the idea of a doctorate for thetime being, feeling certain she could return to itat any time. Far beyond her dedication to anygiven career, Anne was a traveler in the truestsense of the concept. She was a member of a raceof enlightened adventurers, those equipped witha scholarly background and for whom a voyagecould only be organized by the voyager.

She first realized the pleasures of this kind oflife in 1975, when she accompanied RolandTefnin on an excavation expedition to the Alepregion of Syria, which she continued to work onuntil 1982. In her capacity as the archivist forthe expedition, Anne was in charge of labelingand cataloguing, and making drawings andwatercolors of polychrome ceramics. Some yearslater, in 1989, Anne went to Burkina Faso againwith a filmmaker. The goal was to film therarely used masks of the Mossi. The trip alsotook them to Lobi country, where Anne, onceagain neglecting to protect herself, contractedmalaria. The attacks of this disease that sheendured after her return to Brussels assumed lifethreatening proportions.

In the meanwhile, she had become an art his-tory teacher at Ecole Saint Luc, where hercourses were memorable to all who took them,and so well received that many students soughtto audit them just for the pleasure of attending.

In collaboration with several art historianfriends, in particular Annick de Ville, also

TRIBAL People

BELOW: Anne Leurquinat the archaeologicalsite of Tell Abu Dane,in Syria, 1976.

Photo by Roland Tefnin.

Anne Leurquinhas left us… for the Trail of the Serpent?

by Claude-Henri Pirat

Leurquin E+F 28-08-2006 10:29 Pagina 130

tribalarts 131

ANNE LEURQUIN

recently departed, she founded the ArcadiaAssociation in Brussels, which for many yearsoffered professionally guided docent tours forvisitors to museum exhibitions. Anne was themost sought after guide. Her outstanding pre-sentations resulted in a reputation for excellenceamong even the most discriminating Belgian andFrench art lovers. Thanks to her vast knowl-edge, she was able to pull off audacious improv-isations that often stunned even scholars in heraudience. Many remember with amusement howsome people would pretend to be paying atten-tion to their own guide, while simultaneouslyeavesdropping on Anne’s discourse, and how hergroup seemed to grow visibly larger as it pro-gressed through the exhibition.

At this time she was also solicited to present aseries of lectures. She spoke capably and withease on many subjects, and was able to captivateher audience with presentations on such variedtopics as Poussin’s paintings, Bauhaus, gardenart, musicology, and, of course, her first love, theart of sub-Saharan Africa.

Still with a love of travel, she accompaniedsome lucky people to destinations such as Italy,Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and the MiddleEast. When we learned of the complete absenceof tourists in Egypt at the beginning of the firstGulf War, she and I embarked on an extraordi-nary trip. We were alone in the Cairo Museum,at Gizah and Saqqara, in the pyramid of Khufu,and in the tombs of the valley of Kings andQueens, which were opened especially for us.And I remember how, to my astonishment,recalling the Arabic she had learned in Syria,she was able to communicate, to arrange for therental of horses or bicycles, and to charmawestruck and delighted Egyptians.

But soon a devastating illness would againbring upheaval to her life. For a long time, shedevoted all of her energy and courage to fight-ing it, and resumed lecturing and traveling assoon as she could. Her talent that had beenexpressed through speaking she now felt mightbe more effective in writing. She planned towork on an extensive history of Belgian collec-tions of African art in the catalogue of theUtotombo exhibition, of which she, along withMarie-Louise Bastin, had been among the fourcurators. She also had in mind to produce a

more general and fundamental work onAfrican art, which undoubtedly would havebeen a triumph.

Anne was a great admirer of Jean Rouch,and told us in 1994 that “African art, seen inits context, remains an object of amazement.”But she also believed, as Carl Einstein hadexpressed in 1922, that ethnography and the

history of art had to be reconciled. Well versedin both disciplines, her writings would havemade a great contribution.

But her time was now running out. Althoughalready very weakened, Anne still musteredthe strength to write two of the four volumesdevoted to the Ghysels collection of ethnic jew-elry and ornaments. She also found the energyfor a last visit to Venice, one of her favoritedestinations and one that she knew well.

The readers of this magazine will doubtlessremember the excellent article she wrote onDjenne and Dogon cultures, titled “The Trailof the Serpent.” The Dogon, among whom shehad spent time, were the African people whomost fascinated her, and for whom she had themost tenderness. She spoke of them knowl-edgeably, but also with great enthusiasm. Untilrecently, she held out hope of returning torevisit the Bandiagara escarpment, and to takeher young niece Aline, to whom she had trans-mitted some of her passion. We would like tothink that she is back on the Path of theSerpent, and that she wanders somewherethere, in that extraordinary place that sheloved so much.

ABOVE : Leurquin withMarie-Louise Bastin,1989.

Photo by Roland Tefnin.

Leurquin E+F 25-08-2006 9:23 Pagina 131