L’élégant au nœud papillon

A houndstooth cap, a striped shirt, a striped tie and a black bow tie over a pale knitted vest: this young dandy layers everything the Volta Photo wardrobe could lend. In front of the grey cloth backdrop hung by Sanlé Sory in Bobo-Dioulasso, his gaze drifting off frame, he composes his look with complete seriousness. The square Rolleiflex frame, never cropped, gives him the whole stage, as it did every client of the studio opened in 1960, the year of independence.

This limited edition print, numbered 2/6, is a digigraphie on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315 g paper, delivered in a museum frame under museum glass. A major figure of African photography, Sanlé Sory is held in the collections of MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the V&A and LACMA. This black and white print is on view in Generation Volta at Sakana Gallery, Donostia, until 1 October 2026.

Print details

• Edition : 2/6
• Image : 44 × 44 cm
• Paper : 50 × 65 cm
• Technique : Digigraphie print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315 g paper
• Framing : Museum framing, museum glass

A cap, a bow tie, a knitted vest: this young dandy piles on everything the studio wardrobe can lend. His look belongs to a precise moment in the history of African photography, between 1960, when Sanlé Sory opened Volta Photo at the independence of Upper Volta, and 1983, when a coup closed the golden age of Bobo-Dioulasso. For twenty-three years, studio photography there kept the illustrated diary of a generation inventing itself at the same time as its country.

All works by Sanlé Sory · Exhibition catalogue (PDF)