About this artwork

Thomas Hoepker (b. 1936) is a German documentary photographer. He was working for Stern magazine when he took this series of photographs from the 1966 Premier Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres (First World Festival of Black Arts) in Dakar organized by then-president Léopold Sédar Senghor. He has had a long career that began in the 1950s and he produced some of the most striking photos of 9/11. He has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1964, and served as Magnum President from 2003 to 2006. After his death in 2024, The Art Newspaper aptly wrote: "It was Hoepker’s knack for revealing nuanced perspectives on complex social realities through long-form pictorial narratives that marked him out from others, telling stories punctuated by quick-sighted observations that performed as visual metaphors for troubled times."

Thousands of people attended the festival, many coming from other countries. Hoepker’s photos provide a record of many of the events, but, unfortunately, he did not provide detailed information about the context of the photos. Some years later, he co-produced a coffee table book of photographs from Africa that was praised for its anti-colonial stand, but according to one review, the lack of documentation for the photos was a drawback.