color image of two young women walking on a beach in matching yellow and blue dresses with sheer, white headscarves; brown and white dog at L; blue sky and blue water in background

%C2%A9 Todd Webb Archive

Untitled (Yellow Dresses, Somalia 1958), 1958 (printed 2020)

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Photographed in 1958 on the African continent, these images are the first large scale examples of color photography created by Todd Webb, a leading figure in the early photographic cooperative known as Magnum Photo. These six photographs present an outsider’s view into nine countries at a critical interface between colonialism and independence. Commissioned by the United Nations to document industry and technology, Webb pursued his work for a five-month period and documented everyday life throughout Ghana, Kenya, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Somalia, Sudan, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Togo, and Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania). These images resist romanticized or reductive ethnographic visualizations of African people; instead, they provide insight into the political and cultural life of nations in transition, and at a turning point for Black empowerment across the globe.

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Details
Title
Untitled (Yellow Dresses, Somalia 1958)
Artist Life
1905 - 2000
Role
Photographer
Accession Number
2020.19.5
Curator Approved

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color image of two young women walking on a beach in matching yellow and blue dresses with sheer, white headscarves; brown and white dog at L; blue sky and blue water in background

© Todd Webb Archive

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