NORTHAMPTON, MASS.- The Smith College Museum of Art presents Michel Kameni: Portraits of an Independent Africa, an exhibition featuring 55 black-and-white studio portraits made in the 1960s and 1970s by Cameroonian photographer Michel Kameni (c. 1935–2020). On view August 29, 2025, through January 4, 2026, the exhibition offers a rare glimpse into the daily lives, aspirations, and identities of people living in post-Independence Cameroon.

The exhibition was organized by Curatorial Exhibitions, Pasadena, California, in association with the Solander Collection, and co-curated by SCMA curator Aprile Gallant and Phillip Prodger, Executive Director of Curatorial Exhibitions and former Head of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, London. SCMA is the opening venue for this exhibition, the first display focused on Michel Kameni’s work in North America.

From its founding in 1963, Kameni’s Studio KM in Yaoundé attracted a wide cross-section of society. Known for his gift at capturing both dignity and desire, Kameni worked closely with sitters to create evocative nyanga (boasting) photographs. These portraits were often commissioned to share with friends and family or to commemorate important milestones, relationships, and professional identities.

Kameni’s portraits reveal what his clients most valued: personal and familial bonds, national pride, cultural identity, and style. As intimate records of private lives, the images show how photography became a vital medium for self-expression during a period of tremendous change in Cameroon.

The small prints were designed as personal objects, easily carried or sent through the mail. Many who came to Yaoundé had migrated from remote villages and towns, and photography allowed them to remain connected to friends and family. While the names of sitters were not recorded, the details within the photographs speak eloquently to how these individuals wished to be remembered and how they envisioned their place in a newly independent nation.

“Michel Kameni’s portraits invite us into moments of self-fashioning and pride at a pivotal time in Cameroon’s history,” said Jessica Nicoll, Director and Louise Ines Doyle ’34 Chief Curator of SCMA. “They reveal the ways photography became a powerful means of connection and expression, capturing both personal dreams and the collective spirit of a newly independent nation. We are honored to share his work with our community.”

“Kameni’s ability to portray the people around him with sensitivity and care is truly astounding. Through his pictures, he showed us an Africa swelling with pride, energized with hope and a new sense of purpose,” said Prodger. “We are thrilled that this rarely-seen work can make its North American debut at the Smith College Museum of Art.”

Michel Kameni was born around 1935 in Bana, a Bamileke community in western Cameroon. Introduced to photography by his uncle, a discharged soldier of the French army, Kameni began his career taking identification photographs for the colonial government. In 1963, after apprenticing with a French studio photographer in Douala, he returned to Yaoundé and established Studio KM in the Briqueterie neighborhood.

For decades, Kameni’s studio and business thrived, adapting to new trends even as color and digital photography transformed the medium. Though he lost his sight to cataracts in 2007, Kameni remained a presence in the studio, which was operated by his children. He died in May 2020 in Yaoundé. Today, his children maintain Studio KM as an archive of his life’s work.