A pioneering West African artist, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré created a series of drawings reflecting over a half century of the history of Francophone West Africa. Working exclusively in drawing on cardstock, Bouabré typically created anthologies of serialised images that addressed historical, political, sociological, linguistic and scientific topics. Bouabré’s work first gained international attention in the Magiciens de la Terre exhibition staged at the Centre Georges Pompidou and Grande halle de la Villette, Paris (1989).
In 1992, his work was featured in the Out of Africa exhibition by the Saatchi Gallery in London and subsequently presented at the 1993 and 2013 Venice Biennales. A two-artist show featuring Bouabré’s work alongside that of Italian artist Alighiero Boetti was featured at the DIA Center for the Arts, New York and the American Center, Paris (1993). The artist’s Museum of African Faces series is in the permanent collection of the Tate Modern.