Artists

Sanlé Sory

Press release

“When you are in a place where everybody dances, you have to try to dance like everyone else!” - Sanlé Sory One of West Africa’s most prolific photographers, Sanlé Sory (b.1943, Burkina Faso) took more than a million portraits, over seven decades, showing the profound social and political changes in Burkina Faso. Colour Years captures a lesser-known chapter of his career. His colour prints, meticulously restored from the negatives in his archive, will be on show, alongside Volta Jazz record covers featuring his portraits of the influential bands that flourished after Burkina Faso’s independence. Better known for his black-and-white studio photography of the 1960s and 70s, Sanlé Sory started producing colour portraits in his Volta Photo studio in the mid-1980s. Colour Years reveals a dynamic portrait of a rapidly changing community and society in Burkina Faso across decades of political shifts, global exchange and self-expression through fashion, music and attitude. From studio portraits of families, couples and friends, to identity photographs and portraits of traders and shopkeepers in the local market, Sory's photographs are a vivid portrait of a country in transition and a community ready to embrace change. Sanlé Sory: Colour Years is curated by Taous Dahmani, Curator at The Photographers' Gallery, and produced by The Photographers' Gallery. With thanks to Florent Mazzoleni and the Sanlé Sory Archive for the generous loan of the works and to Sanlé Sory for his collaboration. Prints of Sanlé Sory’s works in the exhibition will be available for sale in the Print Sales Gallery. Two new books Sanlé Sory (Phaidon) and Volta Colour (GOST) will be published in October 2026 and available to buy in our bookshop.