Omar Ibn Said

Artist Omar Victor Diop(Senegalese, born 1980)Senegalese, born 1980

CultureSenegalese

Titles

Omar Ibn Said
from the series Diaspora

Date2015

MediumInkjet print mounted on dibond

DimensionsImage: 47 3/16 × 31 7/16 in. (119.8 × 79.9 cm)
Sheet: 47 3/16 × 31 7/16 in. (119.8 × 79.9 cm)
Mount: 47 3/16 × 31 7/16 in. (119.8 × 79.9 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Sara S. Morgan, Joan Morgenstern, Michael Zilkha, Franci Neely, and Peter and Fannie Morris

Object number2021.51

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionIn his series Diaspora, the Senegalese photographer Omar Victor Diop focused on 15th- to 19th-century portraits of notable Africans in European history, contrasting their lives and legacies with his own in order to tell a story of African history outside of Africa and, in the process, think about his own identity. This image is based on an anonymous ambrotype portrait of Omar Ibn Saïd (1770–1864). Saïd’s 1831 autobiography recounts his birth as a member of the Fula ethnic group of West Africa, education in Senegal, capture and sale into slavery in the United States, escape, and reenslavement.
Provenance[MAGNIN-A, Paris]; purchased by MFAH, 2021.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

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