FEATURE FIG. 13 (above): Climbing the Ruwenzori Mountains, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photograph by Eliot Elisofon, 1951. Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, EEPA EECL 26369. National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. FIG. 14 (right): Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Premier of Eastern Region, Urualla, Nigeria. Photograph by Eliot Elisofon, 1959. Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, EEPA EECL 1673. National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. 88 tions, Elisofon developed an extensive treatment and traveled throughout Nigeria, photographing many aspects of society—the arts, education, industry, military, and local leaders and politicians.15 He focused his lenses on emerging political leaders, for example Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s first president, on the campaign trail (fig. 14) and on artists and writers. Some of these were quickly gaining international recognition, including painter Ben Enwonwu, sculptor Lamidi Fakeye, and writer Chinua Achebe, who had just released his first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958). Painting in Light: The Photographer as Artist In Africa ReViewed, Elisofon’s studio photographs of artworks are paired with the actual objects he collected in Africa, including a Dogon female figure from Mali (figs. 15a and b), a Gobu knife from Congo (figs. 16a and b), and a Fang reliquary figure from Gabon (figs. 17a and b). Many of these experimental images have not been previously published or exhibited and are a little-known aspect of Elisofon’s photography. His innovative techniques included multiple exposures on a single negative; the use of strobes, repetitive flash and cross lighting; and the creation of silhouettes, composites, and enlargements to isolate abstract constructions in the works of art. He often made various studies and details in addition to a conventionally lighted full figure. In these photographs, Elisofon once elucidated that he tried to “to explode the FACING PAGE FIG. 15a: Eliot Elisofon, Dogon female figure (variation #1), 1951. Vintage silver gelatin print. Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, EEPA EECL 1973-002. National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. FIG. 15b: Female figure. Dogon, Mali. Early to mid-20th century. Wood, pigment. H: 16.5 cm. National Museum of African Art, bequest of Eliot Elisofon, 73-7-14. Photo: Franko Khoury. FIG. 16a: Eliot Elisofon, Gobu throwing knife (variation #1), 1951. Vintage silver gelatin print. Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, EEPA EECL 1973-002. National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. FIG. 16b: Throwing knife. Gobu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Early 20th century. Iron, reed. H: 45.3 cm. National Museum of African Art, bequest of Eliot Elisofon, 73-7-524. Photo: Franko Khoury. object into recognition as a work of art.”16 The Cubist movement, especially the work of modernist artists Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Paul Klee, Vasily Kandinsky, and Marcel Duchamp, was one of the primary inspirations behind Elisofon’s experimental approach to photographing African sculpture. His multiple exposures have the effect of seeing the object on all sides simultaneously—a central Cubist aesthetic. Elisofon himself compared his multiple exposures of the Dogon figure, Variation #3 (fig. 18) to Marcel Duchamp’s painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2.17 When he had the opportunity, he turned this experimental technique on his friend the artist, creating a reflexive portrait for
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