The Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow, one of the giants of African art, died Thursday in Dakar aged 81, his family told AFP. The artist was best known for his monumental sculptures of Nubian wrestlers inspired by the pictures taken in Sudan by the controversial German photographer Leni Riefenstahl.
Sow's series of striking bronzes of muscular African men - "The Maasai", "The Zulus" and "The Fulani" - were widely exhibited in France and at the prestigious Documenta festival in Germany and the Venice Biennale. "The fact that his works were shown all over the world proved that he was a giant of culture. It is a real loss," said Senegal's Culture Minister Mbagnick Ndiaye.