The bold, mesmerizing large canvas Biafra (1968) by Sorel Etrog responds to the Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War (1967 – 1970). This brutal conflict led to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the twentieth century, and the forced starvation of Biafrans during the civil war has been recognized as a genocide.

Biafra falls within Etrog’s so-called Links period, which dates from 1963 to 1971. His use of the Links motif originated with his first trip to Italy and discovery of ancient Etruscan art. For the next eight years, Etrog used the motif in various media, in the words of Alma Mikulinsky, “to articulate the existential contrasts of human life.” She writes: “Etrog was attracted to the device both formally and metaphorically for its ability to embody contradictions: the link brings elements together yet allows them also to come undone, and it represents a psychological state as well as physically articulating the mechanisms of the body.”

Extreme suffering caused by a shortage of food was a subject Etrog may have had personal experience with as a child in Romania during World War II. This particular work is said to have been inspired by a photograph in the Globe and Mail depicting a mother holding two children. According to Mikulinsky: “He only sporadically represented war, violence, and suffering directly in his art, but it is nevertheless a recurring motif of great importance that sheds light on his body of work.”

Etrog is widely recognized for his painted constructions as well as his bronze sculptures (see lot 616). Links paintings, by contrast, are rare to the auction market, and Biafra exemplifies Etrog’s profound ability to create, here in two dimensions, an indelible image with universal resonance.