North Africa

Willumsen visits North Africa twice. In 1914 he spends two months in Tunisia with his wife Edith and their two daughters. In 1931 he travels to Oran in Algeria alone to visit his new love Michelle Bourret, who is working at a theatre in the city.

The two countries[AG1.1] are French territory at the time and marked by the presence of the French, who occupy entire areas of cities reserved for Europeans. North African Arabs have to live in separate neighbourhoods. It is these neighbourhoods that fascinate Willumsen, and he makes drawings, pastels and paintings of the people he encounters there. He is particularly interested in the dress of the local population, their colourful buildings, and the strong light. Western tourists and other artists also visit Arabic neighbourhoods to experience their ‘authentic’ culture. These Willumsen does not include in his works.

In his letters home to friends in Denmark Willumsen expresses contempt for the French settlers, yet his motifs also present an oversimplified view of North Africa. His works reflect a more general European fascination with the Arabic-speaking world in Europe at the time and its view of the ‘unknown’ and ‘exotic’.