Untitled (Red Suit, Somalia 1958)

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.