Carol Beckwith & Angela Fisher

Angela Fisher (b. 1947) and Carol Beckwith (b. 1945) have spent over 35 years documenting the rapidly vanishing rituals, ceremonies, and visual traditions of Africa’s diverse tribes. Their collaboration, blending art and anthropology, has resulted in a singular archive of aesthetic power and anthropological depth—an irreplaceable body of work that captures cultural practices before they disappear. The duo estimates that approximately 40 percent of the rites they have recorded no longer exist today, making their visual record a rare and invaluable legacy.

Together, Fisher and Beckwith have journeyed more than 270,000 miles across Africa, often in extreme and remote conditions. Their access has required extraordinary persistence, including a 12-year effort to gain permission to visit the Kuba Kingdom. Their immersive approach has taken them to regions where children had never seen outsiders before. Their collaboration is so fluid that they often forget who took which photograph. While both women have published work individually, their combined projects have made the greatest impact.

Their most recognized publication is African Ceremonies (Abrams), a two-volume chronicle of initiation, marriage, religious, and royal rituals. Painted Bodies (Rizzoli) explores body painting as a cultural and artistic form, and their ongoing project African Twilight (Rizzoli) documents 140 cultures across 50 countries, including 22 communities never before photographed by them.

Fisher and Beckwith’s archive comprises over 500,000 photographs, hundreds of hours of film, and more than 200 illustrated and annotated journals representing 150 African cultures. They currently house this archive in their shared London residence, though they are seeking a permanent institutional home for it, with interest from the Smithsonian Institution and the Royal Geographical Society.

Their photographs have been exhibited internationally, with major retrospectives at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Smithsonian Museum of African Art, the National Geographic Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. They have produced four documentary films and lectured extensively at the American Museum of Natural History, The Explorers Club, The Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society, and the Royal Geographical Society. Their work has been featured in National Geographic, The New York Times, Time, Vogue, and LIFE.

Among their honors, Fisher and Beckwith received the United Nations Society of Writers and Artists’ Award of Excellence “for vision and understanding of the role of cultural traditions in the pursuit of world peace,” and were specially honored by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1999. They also received the distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award from WINGS. Their mission remains urgent: to complete the visual and cultural record of Africa’s disappearing traditions and to preserve the wisdom and values they represent for future generations.