www.africanah.org:
Inspired by Riefenstahl’s photos of the Nuba, he abandoned his career as a physiotherapist, invented new techniques and materials, and created The Nuba, a group of muscular, virile, larger-than-life wrestlers (1984-87). Monumental representations of The Masai (1989) and The Zulus (1990) followed, and in 1992 his work was selected for Documenta IX. Turning to global narrative, he produced a massive tableau of The Battle of Little Big Horn (1998).
Audacious in size, Sow’s figures are modelled with proportional volume and anatomical detail, creating energy in frozen movement and strong human presence. The powerful physicality of 68 of his figures exhibited on the Pont des Arts in Paris (1999), astonished the world and led to commissions from the International Olympic Committee and the Medecins du Monde. Coming from a vacuum of representation of the African body and raising anxious ghosts of racism, Sow’s sculptures boldly confront stereotypes, representing the body without qualms carry a message of tolerance and humanity.
www-parismatch-com:
Figure de l'art africain contemporain, le sculpteur sénégalais Ousmane Sow est mort tôt jeudi à Dakar à l'âge de 81 ans, a annoncé sa famille à"Il emporte avec lui rêves et projets que son organisme trop fatigué n'a pas voulu suiv", a souligné sa famille, précisant qu'il avait fait ces derniers mois plusieurs séjours à l'hôpital à Paris et à Dakar.
Ousmane Sow Introduit À L'Académie Des Beaux arts Par François Hollande, Lors D’un Cérémonie À L’Elysée En Décembre 2013 2.
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Figure of contemporary African art, Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow died early Thursday in Dakar at the age of 81, hi"He takes with him dreams and projects that his too tired body did not want to follow," said his family, adding that he had made several hospital stays in Paris and Dakar in recent months.
Ousmane Sow Introduced To The Academy Of Fine Arts By François Hollande, During A Ceremony At The Elysee Palace In December 2013 2.
www.africanah.org:
Ousmane Sow (1935) is a sculptor extraordinaire. He received his Prince Claus Award for his impressive sculptures of the human body, for his fresh perspective on the body that challenges the international world of figurative art, and for his positive influence on the younger generations of African artists. Sculptor extraordinaire of the human body, Ousmane Sow infuses his creations with potent life force and raw energy.
www.nytimes.com:
Ousmane Sow, often called the Auguste Rodin of Senegal, who earned an international reputation for his expressive sculptures of the Nuba, Masai and other African peoples, died on Thursday in Dakar, Senegal. He was 81. The death was reported by Agence France-Presse.
Mr. Sow (pronounced So) spentmuch of his life as a physical therapist but in his 50s became a full-time sculptor.
After seeing the German photographer Leni Riefenstahl’s book on the Nuba people of southern Sudan, he executed a series of larger-than-life-size sculptures of Nuba wrestlers. Exhibited outside the French Cultural Center in Dakar in 1987, the Nuba series marked Mr. Sow as a talent of the first order.
He made good on that initial impression with a series of sculptures on the Masai of Kenya and Tanzania, the Zulus of South Africa and the nomadic Fulanis of West Africa. Working without drawings, and relying on his intimate knowledge of the human anatomy from his years working as a physical therapist, he created imposing, rough-textured figures, bristling with energy, that seemed to embody the fierce spirit of postcolonial Africa.
He reached an international audience when his work was selected for the 1993 edition of the art festival Documenta in Kassel, Germany, and the Venice Biennale two years later. In 1999, his rican series and a large-scale tableau of the Battle of Little Bighorn, displayed on the Pont des Arts in Paris, attracted three million visitors. In 2013, he became the first African artist elected as a foreign associate member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France.
Ousmane Sow was born on Oct. 10, 1935, in Dakar. His father, Moctar, who had fought for France in World War I, operated a fleet of trucks. His mother, Nafi N’Diaye, was descended from a long line of warriors from St. Louis, Senegal. There was no immediate information on his survivors.
He was enrolled in a French school at the age of 7 and studied the Quran in the afternoons and on weekends at a religious school. He was attracted to sculpture early on, gathering stones on the beach and shaping them into small figurines.
After earning a business diploma, he left for France in 1957. He struggled in Paris, relying at first on handouts and working menial jobs. Responding to an advertisement for a course in massage, herned a diploma in nursing at Laennec Hospital. He went on to study with Boris Dolto, a pioneer of orthopedics and kinesiology in France.
A few years after Senegal gained its independence in 1960, Mr. Sow returned to Dakar and began offering physical therapy services at Le Dantec Hospital. Although dependent on what he called his “substitute profession,” Mr. Sow experimented with sculpture, exhibiting a bas-relief at the First World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar in 1966.
After returning to Paris, he used his office as a makeshift studio. He fabricated marionettes and cast them in a short 16-millimeter film that told the story of an extraterrestrial who traveled to Earth. He also made small, puppetlike sculptures that he gave to friends or discarded.
He returned to Senegal in the early 1980s intending to establish a physical therapy practice, but soon devoted himself completely to sculpture. Of his former profession, he once said: “Having worked with the body gave me freedom. I know just howo go without creating a monster. I know the limits. If you don’t know the human body, or have a theoretical knowledge of proportion, you cannot be free.”
In his earlier work he employed unusual materials for lack of money. He shaped his figures over a metal armature with clay, plastic, stone, metal, jute, cloth, plaster and rubber, occasionally adding wooden eyes and teeth, as well as hair and clothing.
After his 1999 exhibition, he began using a bronze foundry to cast some of his earlier work and newer sculptures, including statues of Victor Hugo, Nelson Mandela and Charles de Gaulle.
His “Battle of Little Bighorn,” with 11 horses and 24 human figures, was shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2003. In 2011 his sculpture “Toussaint L’Ouverture and the Old Slave” was the centerpiece of the exhibition “African Mosaic” at the National Museum of African Art in Washington, an exhibition that showcased the museum’s recent acquisitions. Created for the bicentennial of the Fr work celebrated the Haitian who led a slave revolt in Haiti in the late 18th century.
He recently completed the sculpture “The Peasant,” a commission from the office of the president of Senegal. It is to be cast in bronze and installed in front of the Abdou Diouf International Conference Center in Diamniadio, near Dakar.
www.wikipedia.org:
Ousmane Sow (10 October 1935 – 1 December 2016) was a Senegalese sculptor of larger-than-life statues of people and groups of people.
ow was born in Dakar, Senegal, on 10 October 1935. After the death of his father in 1956, he left Dakar to study in France, where he obtained a diploma in physiotherapy. He returned to Senegal after it became independent in 1960 and started a practice in physiotherapy. He later went back to France and practised there, but returned to Senegal in 1978. He died in Dakar on 1 December 2016 at the age of 81.
Sow was inspired by photographs by Leni Riefenstahl of the Nuba peoples of southern Sudan, and from 1984 begaork on a series of larger-than-life sculptures of muscular Nuba wrestlers. To make them, he developed a series of new techniques and materials. They were shown at the Centre Culturel Français de Dakar in 1987. Sow later made series of sculptures of Maasai people, of Zulu people, of Peul or Fulani people, and, in the late 1990s, of Native Americans.
www.rbb85.wordpress.com:
In 2008 Sow was honored with a Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands in the theme Culture and the human body.
www.maisonousmanesow.com:
The Maison Ousmane Sow has been visited by many people since its opening on May 5th, 2018. In order to create his sculptures, for long hours, Ousmane Sow remained locked in his studio house in Dakar, a place where he lived from 1999 until the end of his life. This house, in itself is a work of art. Its floor is still covered with tiles made by the artist himself and the walls remain painted with"his material". Definitely contemporary, this building now shelters about thirty original pieces of artwork.
Inspired by Riefenstahl’s photos of the Nuba, he abandoned his career as a physiotherapist, invented new techniques and materials, and created The Nuba, a group of muscular, virile, larger-than-life wrestlers (1984-87). Monumental representations of The Masai (1989) and The Zulus (1990) followed, and in 1992 his work was selected for Documenta IX. Turning to global narrative, he produced a massive tableau of The Battle of Little Big Horn (1998).
Audacious in size, Sow’s figures are modelled with proportional volume and anatomical detail, creating energy in frozen movement and strong human presence. The powerful physicality of 68 of his figures exhibited on the Pont des Arts in Paris (1999), astonished the world and led to commissions from the International Olympic Committee and the Medecins du Monde. Coming from a vacuum of representation of the African body and raising anxious ghosts of racism, Sow’s sculptures boldly confront stereotypes, representing the body without qualms carry a message of tolerance and humanity.
www-parismatch-com:
Figure de l'art africain contemporain, le sculpteur sénégalais Ousmane Sow est mort tôt jeudi à Dakar à l'âge de 81 ans, a annoncé sa famille à"Il emporte avec lui rêves et projets que son organisme trop fatigué n'a pas voulu suiv", a souligné sa famille, précisant qu'il avait fait ces derniers mois plusieurs séjours à l'hôpital à Paris et à Dakar.
Ousmane Sow Introduit À L'Académie Des Beaux arts Par François Hollande, Lors D’un Cérémonie À L’Elysée En Décembre 2013 2.
Translate
Figure of contemporary African art, Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow died early Thursday in Dakar at the age of 81, hi"He takes with him dreams and projects that his too tired body did not want to follow," said his family, adding that he had made several hospital stays in Paris and Dakar in recent months.
Ousmane Sow Introduced To The Academy Of Fine Arts By François Hollande, During A Ceremony At The Elysee Palace In December 2013 2.
www.africanah.org:
Ousmane Sow (1935) is a sculptor extraordinaire. He received his Prince Claus Award for his impressive sculptures of the human body, for his fresh perspective on the body that challenges the international world of figurative art, and for his positive influence on the younger generations of African artists. Sculptor extraordinaire of the human body, Ousmane Sow infuses his creations with potent life force and raw energy.
www.nytimes.com:
Ousmane Sow, often called the Auguste Rodin of Senegal, who earned an international reputation for his expressive sculptures of the Nuba, Masai and other African peoples, died on Thursday in Dakar, Senegal. He was 81. The death was reported by Agence France-Presse.
Mr. Sow (pronounced So) spentmuch of his life as a physical therapist but in his 50s became a full-time sculptor.
After seeing the German photographer Leni Riefenstahl’s book on the Nuba people of southern Sudan, he executed a series of larger-than-life-size sculptures of Nuba wrestlers. Exhibited outside the French Cultural Center in Dakar in 1987, the Nuba series marked Mr. Sow as a talent of the first order.
He made good on that initial impression with a series of sculptures on the Masai of Kenya and Tanzania, the Zulus of South Africa and the nomadic Fulanis of West Africa. Working without drawings, and relying on his intimate knowledge of the human anatomy from his years working as a physical therapist, he created imposing, rough-textured figures, bristling with energy, that seemed to embody the fierce spirit of postcolonial Africa.
He reached an international audience when his work was selected for the 1993 edition of the art festival Documenta in Kassel, Germany, and the Venice Biennale two years later. In 1999, his rican series and a large-scale tableau of the Battle of Little Bighorn, displayed on the Pont des Arts in Paris, attracted three million visitors. In 2013, he became the first African artist elected as a foreign associate member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France.
Ousmane Sow was born on Oct. 10, 1935, in Dakar. His father, Moctar, who had fought for France in World War I, operated a fleet of trucks. His mother, Nafi N’Diaye, was descended from a long line of warriors from St. Louis, Senegal. There was no immediate information on his survivors.
He was enrolled in a French school at the age of 7 and studied the Quran in the afternoons and on weekends at a religious school. He was attracted to sculpture early on, gathering stones on the beach and shaping them into small figurines.
After earning a business diploma, he left for France in 1957. He struggled in Paris, relying at first on handouts and working menial jobs. Responding to an advertisement for a course in massage, herned a diploma in nursing at Laennec Hospital. He went on to study with Boris Dolto, a pioneer of orthopedics and kinesiology in France.
A few years after Senegal gained its independence in 1960, Mr. Sow returned to Dakar and began offering physical therapy services at Le Dantec Hospital. Although dependent on what he called his “substitute profession,” Mr. Sow experimented with sculpture, exhibiting a bas-relief at the First World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar in 1966.
After returning to Paris, he used his office as a makeshift studio. He fabricated marionettes and cast them in a short 16-millimeter film that told the story of an extraterrestrial who traveled to Earth. He also made small, puppetlike sculptures that he gave to friends or discarded.
He returned to Senegal in the early 1980s intending to establish a physical therapy practice, but soon devoted himself completely to sculpture. Of his former profession, he once said: “Having worked with the body gave me freedom. I know just howo go without creating a monster. I know the limits. If you don’t know the human body, or have a theoretical knowledge of proportion, you cannot be free.”
In his earlier work he employed unusual materials for lack of money. He shaped his figures over a metal armature with clay, plastic, stone, metal, jute, cloth, plaster and rubber, occasionally adding wooden eyes and teeth, as well as hair and clothing.
After his 1999 exhibition, he began using a bronze foundry to cast some of his earlier work and newer sculptures, including statues of Victor Hugo, Nelson Mandela and Charles de Gaulle.
His “Battle of Little Bighorn,” with 11 horses and 24 human figures, was shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2003. In 2011 his sculpture “Toussaint L’Ouverture and the Old Slave” was the centerpiece of the exhibition “African Mosaic” at the National Museum of African Art in Washington, an exhibition that showcased the museum’s recent acquisitions. Created for the bicentennial of the Fr work celebrated the Haitian who led a slave revolt in Haiti in the late 18th century.
He recently completed the sculpture “The Peasant,” a commission from the office of the president of Senegal. It is to be cast in bronze and installed in front of the Abdou Diouf International Conference Center in Diamniadio, near Dakar.
www.wikipedia.org:
Ousmane Sow (10 October 1935 – 1 December 2016) was a Senegalese sculptor of larger-than-life statues of people and groups of people.
ow was born in Dakar, Senegal, on 10 October 1935. After the death of his father in 1956, he left Dakar to study in France, where he obtained a diploma in physiotherapy. He returned to Senegal after it became independent in 1960 and started a practice in physiotherapy. He later went back to France and practised there, but returned to Senegal in 1978. He died in Dakar on 1 December 2016 at the age of 81.
Sow was inspired by photographs by Leni Riefenstahl of the Nuba peoples of southern Sudan, and from 1984 begaork on a series of larger-than-life sculptures of muscular Nuba wrestlers. To make them, he developed a series of new techniques and materials. They were shown at the Centre Culturel Français de Dakar in 1987. Sow later made series of sculptures of Maasai people, of Zulu people, of Peul or Fulani people, and, in the late 1990s, of Native Americans.
www.rbb85.wordpress.com:
In 2008 Sow was honored with a Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands in the theme Culture and the human body.
www.maisonousmanesow.com:
The Maison Ousmane Sow has been visited by many people since its opening on May 5th, 2018. In order to create his sculptures, for long hours, Ousmane Sow remained locked in his studio house in Dakar, a place where he lived from 1999 until the end of his life. This house, in itself is a work of art. Its floor is still covered with tiles made by the artist himself and the walls remain painted with"his material". Definitely contemporary, this building now shelters about thirty original pieces of artwork.