Atelier photographique de la Haute-Volta, Afrique

Volta Photo Studio 
photographs by Sory Sanlé 
circa 1960 - 1985 
Bobo-Dioulasso 
Burkina Faso
 

Sory Sanlé will be getting his first shows in the US this spring, one at the Art Institute of Chicago and another at a gallery in New York.  I read somewhere that he nearly took a match to the lot of it, but that’s probably romantic hyperbole.  He’s 73 years old now and looks in pretty fine shape still, though not as good as in the picture directly above, the 10th picture down, which is a self portrait shot about fifty years ago.  The next two shots just below are also him.  It should come as no surprise to learn that he used a twin reflex Rollei.

Fyodor's Dance

Ivan Grozny part 2 
(completed 1946 & released 1958) 
Sergei Eisenstein 
(22 January 1898 - 11 February 1948)

...in honor of his 120th birthday, some great queer images from the penultimate sequence of his last completed film, where Ivan's favorite, Fyodor, vigorously dances in masked drag.

Leonardo's Adoration restored

Adoration of the Magi 1480
after recent restoration 
and other paintings
Leonardo da Vinci
Florence, Milan, Rome

The paintings above are all generally accepted as having been painted by Leonardo, with or without the assistance of his studio.  A lot of restoration has been done of late and this has changed our understanding of how his work was meant to look.