West Africa vignettes

This collection of sketches by illustrator, cartoonist, and author Elton Fax is based on his travels to West Africa in 1959. Fax was born in 1909 in Baltimore, Maryland, and attended Frederick Douglas High School with Cab Calloway. In 1934, he began teaching with the federal government’s Works Progress Administration (WPA). During the following decades, he traveled frequently to places such as Mexico, South America, Rome, and the Soviet Union. In 1959, Fax travelled to Northern Nigeria, Lagos, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, and Senegal. He produced sketches of his observations and experiences, and in 1960, a selection of his drawings was published in a paperback edition by the American Society of African Culture. Watson Library’s copy is a bi-lingual hardcover edition published in 1963 with a commentary by Fax, and includes additional drawings not included in the first edition.