Hommage à Bessie Smith
1987
Oil on canvas
2002-13-1, gift of Mme Abdou Diouf and museum purchase

b. 1928, Senegal

N’Diaye studied architecture in Senegal and France. At the request of former President Léopold Sédar Senghor, N’Diaye returned to Senegal to create the Department of Plastic Arts at the National School of Fine Arts. He headed the department for six years before returning permanently to Paris.

N’Diaye’s works demonstrate a range of influences. Hommage à Bessie Smith is part of an important series of paintings devoted to the great performers of jazz and gospel music and demonstrates the artist’s interest in modern cultural forms. The intimate scale and careful sketching of archaeological and modern sculpture in The Cry (Head of a Djem statuette, Nigeria) and Untitled suggest the artist’s consciousness of pan-African heritage, which is deeply rooted in history, material culture and contemporary global experience.

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