About this artwork

This photo shows Léopold Senghor and his wife Colette at the First World Festival of Black Arts in 1966.

Thomas Hoepker, a German documentary photographer, was working for Stern magazine when he took this photo. He has had a long career that began in the 1950s and he produced some of the most striking photos of 9/11. He was a member of Magnum Photos and later went on to become its president. 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."

A reviewer of Hoepker’s work wrote that he “has dedicated his life to creating a photographic record that illustrates both the essential historical context and his subjects' uniquely personal experiences,” which is an apt description of this photo of Senghor and his wife at the Festival in Dakar in 1966.

Thousands of people attended this festival and 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 book of his 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.