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An exhibition on the theme of the image of the black man in colonial advertising is the origin of this painting. The jovial soldier with a red uniform hat, was the logo of the French chocolate company: Banania. Widely distributed, this colonial product contributed to diffuse the popularity of this stereotype in French society during this period. Using an advertising slogan: "Y'a bon Banania" (its good Banania) , this face accompanied the slogan "African pidgin", had become the image of the good black man of the colonies. But for Fode, this image was equally important as caricature of a father now deceased who was a military man in the French colonial army. He painted the face by mixing up the colors as if looking to erase something, like the red uniform hat disappearing behind violent streaks of blue. He preserved , in contrast, a large clear rectangle around the mouth. The smile, the lips, the flat nose as well as the whiteness of the teeth are accentuated, as if to assert what had become the symbols of black men in the colonies.
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