The article concerns the history of formation and development of one of the most engaged directions of the modern fi ne arts - the African modernism. Its creation has been closely connected with the names of outstanding artists. Uche Okeke (Nigeria), Ibrahim al Salakhi (Sudan), El Anatsui (Ghana) are among them. Within the African modernism there was a merge of traditions of the people of the continent and modern forms and genres, and also symbols, images, signs of visual, verbal and contextual culture.