About this artwork

Roger DaSilva was born in 1925 in Benin and first took up photography when he joined the French army in 1942. He began documenting injured soldiers, as well as the return of concentration camp survivors after the 1945 armistice. Following World War II, he settled in Dakar and, in 1953, he set up a studio there. DaSilva's glamorous black and white photos of 1950s and 1960s Senegal paint a vibrant, celebratory picture of life in the West African country as it headed towards independence from colonial France.