Central Africa, 1900 a.d.–present

• 1880–1910 In what is today the Democratic Republic of Congo, a ritual expert (nganga) and the Yombe artist known today as the Chiloango River Master collaborate on the creation of a corpus of distinctive minkisi, or monumental power figures, called Mangaaka. Used by diviners to consult the spiritual realm for solutions to earthly crises, these works are characterized by their massive scale, naturalistic appearance, and intricately carved representations of knotted fiber headgear.

• 1884–1918 Cameroon remains a German protectorate until Germany's defeat at the end of World War I in 1918, when control passes to France. Throughout this period, German museums acquire numerous important examples of Cameroonian art. Among the most significant works is the late nineteenth-century beaded throne of King Nsa'ngu of Bamum, which is presented to German emperor Wilhelm II in 1908 by Nsa'ngu's son Njoya. Today the throne forms part of the Cameroon collection of the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin.

• 1885–early 20th century The White Fathers, a Catholic missionary group organized to seek conversions in non-Christian areas of Africa, is established in the southeastern Congo. Originally seeking to carve out an independent "Christian Kingdom" within territory largely inhabited by Tabwa and related peoples, the White Fathers sponsor missionary schools and produce dictionaries, grammars, and a translation of the Bible in the local KiTabwa language. After 1900, as control over the Belgian Free State is consolidated and ultimately transferred to the Belgian republican government, the White Fathers abandon territorial aspirations and focus on conversion. Large numbers of indigenous religious sculpture as well as trees and stones associated with earth spirit sites are destroyed, while others are confiscated and sent to White Fathers headquarters in Belgium and Rome.

• ca. 1892–1933 The reign of Njoya, king of Bamum, is characterized by a remarkable florescence of courtly traditions and the celebration of Bamum history and culture. An enthusiastic patron of artistic and architectural projects, Njoya establishes art schools at the court and encourages textile production. He also creates a written language and writes a history of the kingdom and a guide to its rituals. His kinsman Prince Ibrahim Njoya designs and oversees the construction of a three-story palace for the ruler, and is the author of a series of illustrated chronologies of the Bamum kings. Despite their unconventional design and use of Western materials (watercolor and crayon on paper), Ibrahim's king lists reflect traditional practices of recording dynastic succession and royal portraiture. German visitors to the court produce extensive photographic documentation of Bamum's achievements and innovations at this time.

• 1904–6 German ethnographer Leo Frobenius leads a collecting expedition to the Belgian Free State, the first of twelve he ultimately undertakes throughout West and Central Africa. Several European and American art and ethnographic museums purchase pieces collected by Frobenius, including the University Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A university lecturer and museum ethnographer, Frobenius later establishes his own research facility, the Frobenius-Institut in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and publishes several influential studies on African art and anthropology.

• 1906–9 Under the sponsorship of the British Museum in London, Hungarian-born ethnographer Emil Torday leads a collecting expedition to central Belgian Free State and acquires over 3,000 objects. Nearly half of these works are obtained from the Kuba and related peoples and are accompanied by extensive ethnographic documentation, making the collection an unparalleled record of the artistic production and aesthetic philosophies of these cultural groups. The University Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, also acquires artworks from Torday.

• 1908 Control of the Belgian Free State, up to this point the private property of King Leopold of Belgium, is transferred to the Belgian republican government.

• 1908–14 Naturalists Herbert Lang and James Chapin, both of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, lead an expedition to the Uélé region of northeastern Belgian Congo. Although they record and document all aspects of the region, including its flora and fauna, their primary object is the ethnological study of the local Mangbetu and Zande peoples. Their prolonged residence in the area, unique in comparison to other museum-funded expeditions, provides insights into indigenous political structures and belief systems. The expedition arrives during a moment of change in Mangbetu art, and may have itself contributed to its stylistic evolution. Objects such as clay vessels, ivory carvings, and wooden sculptures produced during and after the Lang and Chapin expedition commonly incorporate figural components representing Mangbetu people, whereas nineteenth-century visitors such as Georg Schweinfurth make no note of these naturalistic qualities. Today scholars suggest that this trend arose in response to the aesthetic preferences of the Lang-Chapin team and were reinforced by the expectations of later Western collectors.

• 1920s–30s W. F. P. Burton (1886–1971), a British Pentecostal missionary stationed in the Belgian Congo, gathers extensive ethnographic information on the Luba peoples and acquires numerous pieces of ritual art. His published works, including the first KiLuba vocabulary, a book on Luba proverbs, and a collection of sketches on the Congo, form the cornerstone of later research on art and culture of this Central African people. Burton leaves his well-documented collection of Luba sculpture to the University of the Witswatersrand, in Johannesburg, where it forms the basis of the University Art Galleries' collection of sub-Saharan African art.

• 1929 The Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, organizes an exhibition of watercolors by Congolese artist Albert Lubaki.

• 1930s Presaging a new approach to the study of African art, Frans Olbrechts of the Tervuren Museum in Brussels proposes the possibility of recognizing the work of individual African sculptors and centers of artistic production based on close stylistic analysis. Whereas earlier attitudes conceptualized African art as anonymous aesthetic expressions born of collectively held beliefs, Olbrechts places emphasis upon the artists themselves and interprets stylistic variations as the result of differing creative visions. Drawing his model from medieval and early Renaissance art history, he suggests attributing artworks to workshops and, if possible, to individual "masters" named for representative examples, geographic origin, or notable characteristics. Olbrechts employs this approach to ascribe a series of Luba figural sculptures to the "master of the long-faced style," more popularly termed the Buli Master after the town where two of his works are collected. Olbrechts' practice is adopted by other early scholars of African art, including William Fagg of the British Museum, who identifies master sculptors in West and Central Africa including the Luba artist known as the "master of the cascade coiffure."

• 1940 Black Africans from French and English colonies are conscripted into the war against Nazi Germany.

• 1946 French citizenship is extended to all inhabitants of French colonies.

• 1951 French artist Pierre Lods establishes the Poto-Poto school in Brazzaville, French Congo.

• 1953 Joseph Kabasele (1930–1983), known as Grand Kallé and considered the father of Congo music, founds the Orchestre African Jazz in Leopoldville (Kinshasa), Belgian Congo.

• 1953 Belgian artist Pierre Romain-Desfossés establishes the Atelier d'Art "Le Hangar" in colonial Elisabethville (Lubumbashi), Congo. He takes on several African art students, including PiliPili Malongoy, Mwenze, Bella, and Kebala, and cultivates a visual aesthetic that employs European early modernist styles to depict indigenous African subjects.

• 1954 The Congregation of the Holy Spirit and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (also called the Spiritists), a Dutch Catholic missionary organization, opens the Afrika Museum in Berg en Dal, Holland, to house and display its extensive collections of African art. Central Africa, including Gabon, the Congo region, and Angola, are particularly well represented in the collection.

• 1960 Belgian Congo, Cameroon, French Congo, Gabon, and Central African Republic gain independence.

• 1960 Katanga Province secedes from the newly independent Congo, igniting a civil war keenly observed by both sides of the Cold War and ultimately drawing United Nations intervention. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba is overthrown and imprisoned by Colonel Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, and assassinated in 1961.

• 1960 Grand Kallé composes "Independence Cha-Cha," the popular theme song of Congolese independence.

• 1963 United Nations troops capture Katanga.

• 1965 General Mobutu comes to power in the Congo in a military coup d'état.

• 1968 Equatorial Guinea gains independence from Spain.

• 1970s A genre of commercial painting emerges in response to the aesthetic demands of the growing Congolese middle class in large urban centers such as Kinshasa, Kisangani, and Lubumbashi. Painted on cloth recycled from flour sacks in street-side workshops, the paintings illustrate many of the values, conflicts, and concerns that grip Congolese postcolonial society. Idyllic pastoral scenes reflect longing for the remembered simplicity of village life. Portrayals of Mami Wata, a mermaid who provides her male consorts worldly wealth in return for absolute fidelity, indicate uneasiness over changing economic relationships and social structures. Several painters emerge as important voices of Congolese historical and social consciousness. These include Tshibumba Kanda Matulu (born 1947) of Lubumbashi, who chronicles the history of the Congo from the great Lunda and Luba empires through the attempted Katanga secession and the murder of Patrice Lumumba, and Cheri Samba of Kinshasa (born 1956), whose satirical paintings comment on the moral and social crises born of the confrontation between African and Western societies.

• 1970 President Mobutu begins his "authenticity" campaign, a sociopolitical movement developed from China's Cultural Revolution and designed to promote Congolese nationalist identity through the adoption of African nomenclature and characteristics. Mobuto reintegrates traditional symbols of Central African leadership such as the scepter and leopard pelt, changes the country's name from the Belgian Congo to Congo Zaire, and orders the removal of all symbols of Belgian colonial rule.

• 1975 Angola gains independence from Portugal.

• 1975 Photographer Samuel Fosso (born 1962) opens the Studio Photo Nationale in Bangui, Central African Republic, and creates a series of self-portraits employing a wide array of costumes and poses. Created during the artist's teenage years, the photographs explore strategies of self-invention through the performative appropriation of Western styles, accoutrements, and attitudes. In 1998, the French clothing store Tati commissions Fosso to produce an advertising campaign marking its fiftieth anniversary.

• 1977 Jean-Bedel Bokassa, leader of Central African Republic, proclaims the Central African Empire and crowns himself emperor. He is overthrown in 1979.

• 1985 The First Biennial of Contemporary Bantu Art (Biennale de l'Art Bantu Contemporain) is organized in Libreville, Gabon.

• 1985 Ngangura Mweze's (born 1950) boisterous film La Vie est Belle (Life Is Rosy) features the musical legend Papa Wemba, and portrays the exhilarating musical scene of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire).

• 1989 Magiciens de la terre, the first major museum exhibition dedicated to modern and contemporary art from Africa, opens at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. The work of painter Cheri Samba in particular gains widespread international attention.

• 1991 The Center for African Art, New York, organizes the exhibition Africa Explores: 20th Century African Art.

• 1995 Africa '95, a festival of African art in England, includes the work of several contemporary artists in exhibitions such as Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa at Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, and Self Evident at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.

• 1995 The first Johannesburg Biennale exhibits several contemporary Angolan artists, including Fernando Alvim (born 1963), António Gomes Gonga, and Lukulu Zola N'Donga.

• 1996 The Guggenheim Museum, New York, hosts a landmark exhibition of photography from throughout the African continent entitled In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present.

• 1996 Les honneurs perdus (The Lost Honors) by Cameroonian author Calixthe Beyala is awarded the Grand Prix de Rome in Paris.

• 1997 Mobuto Sese Seko is overthrown by the rebel forces of Laurent Kabila after more than three decades of rule. The country is renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo.

• 1999 The work of Congolese artist Bodys Isek Kingelez (born 1948) is shown at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh.