The Birds by Ancoumana Diedhiou

1986

Artists in Africa and across the African diaspora championed African aesthetics.

Négritude, French for “Blackness,” was a literary, political, and cultural movement developed by Black French-speaking writers and artists in the 1930s . These artists and writers defined and celebrated Black identity and heritage. Championed by Senegalese poet and president Léopold Sédar Senghor, Négritude also confronted colonialism and cultural suppression, and upheld African styles of expression over European styles.

Négritude greatly influenced modern and contemporary African art. Senegalese artist Ancoumana Diedhiou, for example, was highly influenced by the movement’s philosophy. In this painting, Diedhiou works within the distinctive style of Senegalese modernism.