Modernism in Africa
Though they often escape critical scrutiny, concepts such as modernism, modernity, and modernization are at the heart of the concept of development, and thus omnipresent…
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Capoeira
Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian movement practice that has been categorized as national sport, folklore, martial art, and dance. Although capoeira has been considered a game…
Van Wyk, Christopher (1957–2014)
Born in Baragwanath, Soweto, Chris van Wyk proved an influential figure on the South African literary scene. Associated with the Black Consciousness movement, his volume…
Keita, Fodéba (1921–1969)
Fodéba Keita was a poet, playwright, musician, choreographer, impresario, anti-colonial activist, and statesman. As the leader of several musical bands, author of poems and essays,…
La Création du Monde
A ballet inspired by a creation fable in Blaise Cendrars’s Anthologie nègre (1921), La Création du monde (The Creation of the World) was produced by…
Fugard, Athol (1932--)
Athol Fugard has been a novelist and memoirist (of sorts), but is best known for his pioneering political work in the theatre as a writer,…
Kofi, Vincent Akwete (1923–1974)
Vincent Akwete Kofi was born in Odumasi-Krobo, Ghana. After training at Achimota College, which had the first and foremost art department in West Africa, he…
Kappata, Stephen (1936–2007)
Stephen Chipango Kappata was born in Zambia in 1936 to Angolan migrant parents who had fled Angola during the Portuguese wars of conquest during World…
Kacimi, Mohamed (1942–2003)
Mohamed Kacimi was a significant Moroccan modernist artist who rose to prominence in the 1970s. His paintings were semi-abstract, and while a large part of…
The Oshogbo Group
Between 1962 and 1966, after Nigeria gained Independence from Britain, a group of artists emerged in the Yoruba town of Oshogbo in southwestern Nigeria. They…
Mokhtar, Mahmoud (1891–1934)
Mokhtar deftly blended Pharaonism with neoclassicism to create modern, nationalist sculpture. Born in 1891 in Tanbara, he enrolled in the first class at the École…
Antubam, Kofi (1922–1964)
Kofi Antubam was an influential and pioneering modern artist in Ghana. His realistic, narrative scenes of idealized African life, depicted in wall paintings and mosaics,…
Ben Abdallah, Jellal (1921--)
Jellal Ben Abdallah is a Tunisian artist and illustrator based in Sidi Bou Saïd. He studied at the Lycée Carnot in Tunis. His early drawings…
Okeke, Uche (1933--)
Born as Christopher Uchefuna Okeke in Anambra State, Nigeria in 1933, Uche Okeke is a founding father of Nigerian Modern Art. As one of the…
Samb, Mamadou Pape (1951–2014)
Mamadou Pape Samb, better known as Papisto Boy, was a Senegalese street artist celebrated locally and internationally. He moved to Dakar as an orphan of…
Nwoko, Demas (1935--)
Across the spectrum of fine art and design, Demas Nwanna Nwoko has made his mark as a central contributor to a neo-traditionalist philosophy at the…
Kumalo, Sydney (1935–1988)
Sydney Kumalo (1935–1988) was an important early black modernist working primarily in cast metal sculpture and drawing. As an artist and educator, Kumalo’s contributions were…
Acogny, Germaine (1944--)
In a career that has spanned over forty years, Germaine Acogny has contributed to modernism in dance by merging culturally situated West African dances from…
Tekle, Afewerk (1932–2012)
Afewerk Tekle was Ethiopia’s leading modern artist, famously known for introducing Western techniques of painting and sculpture to Ethiopia, and for his government commissions under…
Lattier, Christian (1925–1978)
Christian Lattier, nicknamed the “bare-handed sculptor” by art historian Yacouba Konaté, was among the pioneers of modern art in Côte d’Ivoire. His success was formally…
Ngatane, Ephraim Mojalefa (1938–1971)
Born in 1938 in Maseru, Lesotho (then Basutoland), South Africa, Ephraim Ngatane was a painter and jazz musician affiliated with the first generation of modern…
Wenger, Susanne (1915–2009)
Susanne Wenger was an Austrian artist and an instrumental figure in the history of Nigerian modernism. Born on July 4, 1915 in the city of…
Kamel, Youssef (1891–1971)
Youssef Kamel is an Egyptian painter renowned for his impressionist landscapes of the countryside and views of medieval Cairo. As one of the leading figures…
Indigenous Modernisms
Indigenous modernism is not to be confused with earlier ideas of modern Indigenous art, though they do to some extent pre-empt it. In the mid-20th…
The National Gallery of Zimbabwe
The National Gallery of Zimbabwe is an art museum in Harare dedicated to collecting, preserving, and promoting Zimbabwean visual culture. Though the collection focuses on…