Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow, who sculpted Nelson Mandela as a goalkeeper charged with keeping “corrupt African heads of state at bay”, became the first African artist to be admitted to France’s prestigious Académie des Beaux-Arts on Thursday, reports FRANCE 24.
Sow was elected to the esteemed French Academy of Fine Arts – one of France’s five creative “académies” – at a ceremony in Paris on Thursday, at which the world-renowned sculptor dedicated the honour to “all of Africa, its diaspora and the great man who has just left us, Nelson Mandela”.
He also paid tribute to his late countryman, Senegalese writer Léopold Sédar Senghor, who was the first African to be elected to the Académie française (France’s academy of French language) in 1983.
Born in the Senegalese capital of Dakar in 1935, Sow is one of Francophone Africa’s most prominent artists. He is known for sculpting his imposing creations without the use of a model.
At 78, Sow has spent most of his adult life between Dakar and Paris, where he first moved when he was 22.
As a young man, he found odd jobs in the French capital and sought overnight shelter at police stations and hospitals, apparently in exchange for fresh bread in the morning. He enrolled at a physiotherapy school, where he was able to indulge and develop his fascination for the human body.
Read more of this report from FRANCE 24.