In 2017 the David Hill Gallery was the first to present the work of now established artist Sanlé Sory outside of West Africa and he is still under their representation. Twelve Sanlé Sory works will be on display in Tête à Têtes, several of which are previously unseen. 

Sanlé Sory started his career in Bobo-Dioulasso, now Burkina Faso, in 1960, the year the country gained independence. Sory caught the exuberance of West African youth immersed in new styles of music and dancing in the first decades of African independence. Many of photographs depict the enmeshment of tradition and modernity that was taking place at this time. 

‘These people are metropolitan, worldly, and cool, and they vibrate with excitement for a new future.’ The New Yorker

Now with gallery representation in London, New York, Paris and Amsterdam, Sanlé was the first African photographer to receive a solo show at an American museum (Art Institute of Chicago, 2018).  His work was also featured in David Hill and Carrie Scott’s 2020 exhibition Tête-à-Têtes: West African Portraiture from Independence into the 21st Century.