Western Africa

About

Nok artists in present-day Nigeria modelled expressive terracotta heads more than two thousand years ago. In Ife, from around the 12th century, sculptors cast serene, naturalistic heads in copper alloy, and the court of Benin commissioned brass plaques recording kings, warriors and Portuguese visitors. Mali's Great Mosque of Djenné is rebuilt in mud plaster by its community each year, and Akan weavers in Ghana produce kente cloth in strips of bright geometric pattern.

In the 20th century, Ben Enwonwu became Nigeria's first modern artist of international standing, and students at Zaria, including Bruce Onobrakpeya, sought a "natural synthesis" of local and Western art in the late 1950s. Seydou Keïta photographed Bamako residents in his studio in the 1950s. Frédéric Bruly Bouabré drew an alphabet and cosmology on small cards, Ousmane Sow sculpted monumental figures, and El Anatsui stitches bottle caps into metallic hangings.