"Anything to help people make the picture their own."
Sanlé Sory (Ibrahima Sanlé Sory, b. 1943, Burkina Faso) is one of the great studio photographers of West Africa, the visual chronicler of Bobo-Dioulasso's exuberant youth in the decades following independence. In 1960, the year Upper Volta gained its freedom from France, he opened his studio Volta Photo, soon recognized as the finest in the city: with his twin-lens Rolleiflex, painted backdrops and props, from Air Afrique flight bags to radios, telephones and a motorbike, he portrayed Fula, Malian and Voltaic youths playacting their modern dreams. Long known only locally, he was rediscovered internationally in 2017; in 2018 the Art Institute of Chicago dedicated to him his first U.S. museum exhibition. His photographs are held in the MoMA, the V&A, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Fondation Cartier, among others. He lives and works in Bobo-Dioulasso.