DAKAR, Senegal (AP) – Ousmane Sow, a Senegalese sculptor whose work celebrated African tribes along with historical icons such as Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr., has died at 81, the culture minister said Thursday.
The Senegalese people “are losing one of their most emblematic figures” – a man who was “admired everywhere,” Mbagnick Ndiaye said in a statement. In a separate statement, President Macky Sall credited Sow with producing “characters and scenes that bear witness to the long history of Africa, its identity and its relationship to the rest of the world.”
The cause of death was not immediately available.
Born in Dakar in 1935, Sow moved to Paris “without a penny in his pocket” following the death of his father, according to a biography on his website. He originally trained as a physical therapist before devoting himself fully to sculpture at age 50, the website says.
His first exhibition was organized by Dakar’s French Cultural Center in 1987. He gained renown for dramatic depictions of the human form sculpted without the use of models.