Art form
African masks
What African masks are for, how they are used in masquerade, and the best-known types, from Dogon, Bamana, Dan and Baule to Gelede, Punu, Chokwe and Kuba.
African art forms and traditions
Most of the art made in Africa over the centuries was not painted on canvas or signed by a famous name. It was danced as masks at funerals and harvests, carved for shrines and royal courts, woven and dyed as cloth, threaded as beads, shaped as pots, and painted on the walls of rock shelters tens of thousands of years ago. Photography, arriving in the nineteenth century, became one of the continent's great modern arts.
This section explains each major art form — how it is made, what it meant, who made it and how to see or buy it — and the best-known named traditions, from Ghana's kente and adinkra to Mali's mudcloth and the Benin Bronzes. For how they fit together over time, read our short history of African art; to explore by place, see African art by region.
Art form
African sculpture
A guide to African sculpture: Nok, Igbo-Ukwu and Ife, Benin brass, Kongo power figures, Fang reliquaries, Baule and Luba carving and modern sculptors.
Art form
African textiles
A guide to African textiles and their patterns: kente, bogolan mudcloth, adire indigo, aso oke, adinkra, Kuba raffia cloth, kanga, shweshwe and wax print.
Art form
African beadwork
African beadwork from 75,000-year-old shell beads to Venetian glass: Maasai collars, Zulu love letters, Ndebele aprons, Yoruba crowns and Krobo beads.
Art form
African pottery
African pottery from the Sahara's first ceramics to Ladi Kwali and Magdalene Odundo: hand-built pots, open firing, Zulu beer pots and Moroccan glazes.
Art form
African rock art
Africa holds some of the oldest rock art on Earth: the Blombos drawing, Apollo 11 Cave, Tassili n'Ajjer, San paintings, Twyfelfontein and Laas Geel.
Art form
African photography
A history of African photography: early studios, Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé, Drum and apartheid, J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, Zanele Muholi and festivals.
Textile tradition
Kente cloth
Ghana
Kente is the strip-woven cloth of Ghana's Asante and Ewe weavers. How it is made, what its colours and pattern names mean, and its UNESCO recognition in 2024.
Visual tradition
Adinkra symbols
Ghana
Adinkra are Akan symbols from Ghana, each tied to a proverb: Gye Nyame, Sankofa, Dwennimmen and more. What 20 common symbols mean and how adinkra cloth is made.
Textile tradition
Mudcloth (bogolan)
Mali
Bogolan, or mudcloth, is Mali's handmade cotton, dyed with leaves and painted with fermented mud. How it is made, what it meant, and how to spot the real thing.
Court art
Benin Bronzes
Nigeria
The Benin Bronzes: thousands of brass, bronze and ivory works from the Kingdom of Benin in Nigeria, looted by British troops in 1897. Their history and return.
Art tradition
Ethiopian art
Ethiopia
Ethiopian art from Aksum's stelae and Lalibela's rock churches to illuminated gospels, icons, crosses and the modern painters of Addis Ababa's art school.
Painting style
Tingatinga
Tanzania · 1968–
Tingatinga is the bright, glossy painting style of Dar es Salaam, created by Edward Saidi Tingatinga around 1968: animals, birds and village life in enamel.
Sculpture tradition
Makonde art
Mozambique · Tanzania
The Makonde of Mozambique and Tanzania carve mapiko helmet masks and blackwood sculpture: ujamaa "trees of life" and shetani spirits. History and artists.
Sculpture movement
Zimbabwe stone sculpture
Zimbabwe · 1950s–
"Shona sculpture", Zimbabwe's modern stone carving, grew from the 1950s National Gallery workshop and Tengenenge into a movement shown worldwide.