African art could be seen in Paris from at least as early as the 1890s not only in the Ethnographical Museum but in junk-shops where 'fetishes' from the French colonies were often on sale. Picasso and his painter friends Vlaminck,Derain and others,who were soon to 'discover' African art, must have been quite familiar without,apparently,being more than mildly interested until current events in France brought the whole subject of Africa up, and in a very pointed way. A French colonial scandal hit the headlines in 1904-5. Arbitrary executions and murders by two French colonial officials, Gaud and Toque,were made known and widely publicized,notably in the illustrated weekly L'Assiette au beurre, to which Picasso's painter friends Juan Gris and Frank
Kupka - both to become prominent Cubist painters Later-frequently
contributed. A special issue on The Torture Of Blacks came out in March 1905. The most shocking instances were those of the so-called 'hunts' was illustrated, the white hunters in their safari suits and topee hats rising from their camp- stools to take aim as a covey of naked Africans was driven past them by presumably French army 'beaters' . In the same issue Bastille Day, of all Days - the day when the beginning of the french Revolution is celebrated all over France - was illustrated with a lithograph of the festivities at Brazzaville,the capital of the French Congo (19.5) French colonial officials are here shown applauding and jeering at the spectacle of an African being dynamited to make a human firecracker.