Papa Ibra Tall

Papa Ibra Tall
Born1935 (1935)
Tivaouane, Thiès Region, Senegal
Died2015 (aged 79–80)
EducationÉcole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, École Spéciale d'Architecture
Known forTapestry, painting
MovementDakar School (French: École de Dakar)

Papa Ibra Tall (1935–2015) was a Senegalese tapestry weaver, painter, and illustrator. He is known for his role in the Dakar School (French: École de Dakar) art movement, and as an early professor at the École Nationale des Beaux Arts.

Biography

Papa Ibra Tall was born in 1935 in the city of Tivaouane in the Thiès Region of Senegal. His artistic career began with oil painting under the tutelage of amateur French painters in Dakar. In 1955, he studied architecture at the École Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris, where he was exposed to the Négritude movement and provided illustrations for the Présence Africaine. He later attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and pursued instruction in Sèvres. With the assistance of the first Senegalese president Léopold Sédar Senghor, he studied painting, serigraphy, tapestry, mosaics, and comparative pedagogy at Sèvres.

Career

Vin Noir (1964)

Papa Ibra Tall returned to Senegal from France in 1960, where he, Iba N'Diaye, and Pierre Lods founded the École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Dakar. He was instrumental in the École de Dakar art movement, which started at the same time. He headed the Section de Recherches en Arts Plastiques Nègres at the École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Dakar. In his instruction, he sought to encourage the development of an "identifiable" Pan-African idiom, and preferred not to provide formal instruction for fear it would block what he believed to be the natural artistic creativity of African artists.

Tall's tapestries were mainly created in low-warp looms and reflected the style and designs found in his paintings and drawings. At the behest of President Senghor, he founded the Manufacture Sénégalaise des Arts Décoratifs (MSAD) tapestry school in 1965.

Tall was one of several exhibiting African artists in the first Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres in 1966. He and Iba N'Diaye helped to organize the exhibition for FESMAN, Tendances et Confrontations, with N'Diaye taking over preparations in 1965. Tall, N'Diaye and several other artists' work in the show engaged with the theories and artistic elements of the Négritude and Pan-Africanism movements. Tall saw Négritude and its separation from Western artistic standards as a way for African artists to define their own artistic language and standards.

One of his students was Seydou Barry.

Exhibitions

References

  1. ↑ Cohen, Joshua I. (2018-08-09). "Locating Senghor's École de Dakar: International and Transnational Dimensions to Senegalese Modern Art, c. 1959–1980". African Arts. 51 (3): 10–25. doi:10.1162/afar_a_00413. ISSN 0001-9933.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Papa Ibra Tall - Biennale de l'Art Africain Contemporain, Dak'Art 2012 du 11 mai au 10 juin 2012, Dakar Senegal". www.biennaledakar.org. Archived from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2026-03-11.
  3. 1 2 Harney, Elizabeth (2004). In Senghor's shadow : art, politics, and the avant-garde in Senegal, 1960–1995. Duke University Press. pp. 56–59. ISBN 9780822386056. OCLC 1055247530.
  4. ↑ Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth; Fillitz, Thomas (2020-06-15). Dak'Art: The Biennale of Dakar and the Making of Contemporary African Art. Routledge. pp. 39–42. ISBN 978-1-000-18245-3.
  5. ↑ "Iba Ndiaye, African Modernist Painter, Is Dead at 80". The New York Times. 15 October 2008. Archived from the original on 2024-11-30. Retrieved 2024-12-23.
  6. 1 2 Murphy, David, ed. (2016). The First World Festival of Negro Arts, Dakar 1966. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 978-1-78138-316-2.
  7. ↑ Harney, Elizabeth (2002). "The Ecole de Dakar: Pan-Africanism in Paint and Textile". African Arts. 35 (3): 13–90. doi:10.1162/afar.2002.35.3.13. ISSN 0001-9933. JSTOR 3337860.
  8. 1 2 Vincent, Cédric (2019-04-19). "Tendencies and Confrontations: Dakar 1966". Afterall. Retrieved 2026-04-13.
  9. ↑ "Seydou Barry". Africultures (in French). ISSN 2271-1732. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 22 December 2024.