“What the Black Man Contributes”

This chapter briefly sketches the artistic and intellectual networks that animated Présence Africaine and that brought together figures such as Picasso and Sekoto. It examines how debates about art in Présence Africaine evolved from the late 1940s through to the later 1950s. In the early years, established art-historical narratives about European modernism and what was termed l “art négre” – the “traditional” arts of West Africa – were reframed by the politics of Negritude. The chapter focuses on how Black artists positioned themselves in relation to the debates. Sekoto and his South African-born compatriot Ernest Mancoba, also active in Paris at mid-century, are two examples. What has gone less appreciated is that the activity of artists from Africa and the Black diaspora had a significant impact on the evolution of modernism in Paris too.