Color image of a man in a red suit crossing the street; white buildings and other figures in the background

Untitled (44UN-8001-496), Somaliland (Somalia), 1958

Todd Webb

Archival pigment print

Courtesy of the Todd Webb Archive L2020.85.76

Not on View

Documenting urban life throughout his journey was important to Webb, as such images would bolster the United Nations’ aim to show a “modernizing” continent. This photograph of a fashionably dressed man crossing the street in Mogadishu conveys an urbanity likely to appeal to viewers in the Global North, while suggesting the Somali capital’s connections to a global economy and related businesslike dress codes.

Image: In Copyright. Courtesy of the Todd Webb Archive

Portraits + Power Dynamics

Return to Portraits + Power Dynamics