Deborah Stokes
Department of Art History
University of Illinois
E-mail: dstokes@uic.edu
Abstract
This paper is a critical reading of how the Yoruba have been portrayed in historical photographic archives. The focus will be on the William B. Fagg* photographic archive, considered a primary research document and source material of his African fieldwork in the 1940s and 1950s. His personal preoccupations and British colonial vision influenced how and who was represented and will be contrasted to the Marilyn Houlberg** photographic archive that documents cultural aspects of post-Independence Nigeria during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Her portrayal of the Yoruba will extend the discourse by challenging earlier constructed boundaries, particularly in the area of women and their cultural role, and narrow the distance between photographer and subject. Also included are portraits by Yoruba studio photographers who have been using manipulated images and photomontage as substitutes for traditionally carved objects, and recording visual biographies of their own communities.
*William B. Fagg, former Keeper, African Ethnology, The British Museum. The Fagg Archive is available to scholars in the following institutions: The Elisofon Library, National Museum of African Art, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; The Goldwater Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, Los Angeles; The Ryerson Library, The Art Institute of Chicago; The Yale University Library; The Royal Anthropological Institute, London.
**Marilyn Houlberg, Professor, The School of The Art Institute of Chicago . The Houlberg Archive is currently being catalogued for The Elisofon Library, National Museum of African Art, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington , D.C.