Sanlé Sory
Yamaha de nuit

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Artist Sanlé Sory(Burkinabé, born 1943)Burkinabé, born 1943

CultureBurkinabé

Titles

Yamaha de nuit
Nighttime Yamaha

Date1972, printed 2017

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 14 × 14 1/8 in. (35.5 × 35.9 cm)
Sheet: 19 13/16 × 15 15/16 in. (50.3 × 40.5 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Joan Morgenstern in memory of Bruce Daniel

Object number2019.62

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionIn the late 1950s, just months before French-controlled Upper Volta would become the independent country of Burkina Faso, Sanlé Sory opened a studio with little more than a few hand-painted backdrops, a camera, and a creative mind. Each person’s turn in the studio was a cinematic event. They were pictured as if in a fantasy—taking off on an adventure, or driving a sleek motorcycle. “I had things I took out when people asked,” Sory said. “The motorbike, the flowerpot, the telephone, the radio.” For the artist, a portrait was a chance for people “to escape their ordinary lives.”
ProvenanceThe artist, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso; [Yossi Milo Gallery, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 2019.
Exhibition History"Through an African Lens: Sub-Saharan Photography from the Museum's Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 27–November 8, 2020.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Signed in pencil, verso, bottom right: SoRy [sic] Sanle 2017 // YAMAHA DE NUIT, 1972 /2017 // 6/15

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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