Samuel Fosso

Samuel Fosso was born in 1962 in Kumba, Cameroon, to Nigerian parents, and spent part of his childhood in Nigeria; the family fled the conflict over Biafra's secession in the late 1960s. He moved to Bangui in the Central African Republic, apprenticed with a photographer and in 1975, aged about thirteen, opened his own studio there.

At the end of the day, he used his leftover film to photograph himself — in flared trousers, platform shoes and shirts he had made, posing like the pop stars on the record covers of the 1970s — and sent the pictures to his family. Those teenage self-portraits, discovered by curators in the 1990s, made his name; in 1994 he won the first prize at the Rencontres de Bamako, the most important photography festival of its kind in Africa.

He has continued to turn the camera on himself ever since, now in elaborate, staged series. In Tati he became a series of types, from a golfer to a "liberated American woman"; Britannica says the Paris department store Tati commissioned it in 1997, while a Paris Photo programme dates the series to 1994. In African Spirits (usually dated 2008), fourteen self-portraits, he restaged famous portraits of the heroes of Black liberation and African independence — among them Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah — with himself in every role. Later series include Emperor of Africa (2013) and Black Pope (2017).

How to look at a Fosso: ask who is in charge of the picture. He is photographer, sitter, costume maker and director at once, so every detail — the pose, the fabric, the backdrop — is chosen. Then compare the image with the historical portrait it quotes, and see where the quotation turns into a personal statement. That reading is this site's own.

On 5 February 2014, during looting after sectarian violence in Bangui, his home studio, which held his complete archive, was ransacked; he was in Paris at the time. He is reported to live both in Bangui and in Paris. He is one of the major figures in the history of African photography, and his work is held by institutions including MoMA in New York and Tate in London, according to the Generali Foundation's list.

Where to see the work

Ask MoMA and Tate which of his photographs are on display, since displays change; the galleries that represent him announce his exhibitions, and the Rencontres de Bamako, the African photography festival where he won in 1994, shows work from across the continent. See also our lists of Nigerian photographers and African photographers.