Cyprien Tokoudagba (1939–5 May 2012) was a

Beninese Benin, officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It was formerly known as Dahomey. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north-west, and Niger to the north-east. The majority of its po ...

sculptor and painter. He was from

Abomey Agbome or Abomey is the capital of the Zou Department of Benin. The commune of Abomey covers an area of 142 square kilometres and, as of 2012, had a population of 90,195 people. Abomey houses the Royal Palaces of Abomey, a collection of small tr ...

, Benin.

Biography

He started to work as an art restorer for the Abomey Museum in 1987, when he was hired to replicate the original

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

s that told many of Dahomey's legends and stories while celebrating the individual kings for the new King Glelé royal palace façade, among the

Royal Palaces of Abomey The Royal Palaces of Abomey are 12 palaces spread over an area of at the heart of the Abomey town in Benin, formerly the capital of the West African Kingdom of Dahomey. The Kingdom was founded in 1625 by the Fon people who developed it into a po ...

reconstructed by the government of Benin. Tokoudagba continued the tradition of bas-relief though the use of cement and commercially available synthetic paint, while also producing works on canvas, frescoes and monumental sculptures. In 1989, Cyprien left Benin for the first time to exhibit at “Magiciens de la Terre” in Paris, France. Tokoudagba's work was exhibited at the "Ouidah '92" festival, which celebrated

Vodun art Vodun art is associated with the West African Vodun religion of Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana. The term is sometimes used more generally for art associated with related religions of West and Central Africa and of the African diaspora in Brazil, ...

from Benin and the African Diaspora in

Ouidah Ouidah (English: ; French: ) or Whydah (; ''Ouidah'', ''Juida'', and ''Juda'' by the French; ''Ajudá'' by the Portuguese; and ''Fida'' by the Dutch), and known locally as Glexwe, formerly the chief port of the Kingdom of Whydah, is a city on t ...

, Benin in February 1993. His works have also been exhibited in the following museums: Smithsonian institution -

National Museum of African Art The National Museum of African Art is the Smithsonian Institution's African art museum, located on the National Mall of the Washington, D.C., United States capital. Its collections include 9,000 works of traditional and contemporary African ar ...

, Washington, DC;

Musée Dapper Musée Dapper was a French museum specializing in African art. It was opened in May 1986, and closed on 18 June 2017. The Dapper Foundation is still located at the same premises in the 16th arrondissement of Paris at 35 rue Paul Valéry, Paris, F ...

, Paris, France;

Museum Kunst Palast The Kunstpalast, formerly Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf is an art museum in Düsseldorf. History The roots of the museum go back around 300 years. In 1932, the collection of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Academy of Art) was housed in the Kunstmu ...

, Düsseldorf, Germany;

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the Royal ...

, London, Englands;

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

, Paris, France;

Mori Art Museum The is a contemporary art museum founded by the real estate developer Minoru Mori. It is located in the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower in the Roppongi Hills complex, a commercial, cultural, and residential mega-complex in Tokyo, Japan. The museum's ...

, Tokyo, Japan; São Paulo Biennale, Brazil.

References

1939 births 2012 deaths 20th-century Beninese sculptors 20th-century Beninese male artists 21st-century Beninese artists 21st-century Beninese male artists 21st-century sculptors Male sculptors People from Abomey Voodoo artists {{Benin-bio-stub