Guyanese-American actress CCH Pounder is celebrated for her award-winning roles on NCIS: New Orleans, The Shield, and James Cameron’s Avatar. Alongside her successful acting career, she is deeply committed to the arts as a collector, patron, and curator. In 1992, she and her late husband founded Musée Boribana, the first privately owned contemporary museum in Dakar, Senegal, which they generously donated to the nation in 2014.

A noted collector, she has amassed over 500 stunning works, focusing on Caribbean and African artists and the African Diaspora. Major artists featured include Kehinde Wiley, Patricia Renee Thomas, Ronald Jackson, Robert Pruitt, Greg Breda, Ebony G. Patterson, and Mickalene Thomas. Selections from her collection have been exhibited at Xavier University, Somerset House, and the National Portrait Gallery in London. Currently, works are featured in Double ID at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, on display until 20 October 2024. A new exhibition, Shared Vision: Portraits from The CCH Pounder-Koné Collection, recently opened at The African American Museum in Philadelphia and will run until March 2025.

Join us for a conversation with Pounder as she shares her inspiring journey and discusses the significance of art collecting in her life.

'21st Century Pieta'(2020) by Candace Hunter. Photo credit: Theresa Spencer.

What initially sparked your passion for collecting art, and how did you begin your journey as an art collector?

I was living in an art-filled community - actors, visual artists, poets, musicians so many of our ideas and exchanges happened at galleries, small theatres etc. Contemporary art collecting became part and parcel of my everyday existence, then it became a hunt!

'Untitled' (2023) by Fehamou Pecou. Photo credit: Thom Bennett.

Can you share the vision and mission behind Musée Boribana and its significance to you?

My late husband Boubacar Koné said within months of marriage that he always dreamed of having a museum. He was not overly familiar with contemporary art, he procured African artefacts for Western curators and specialized in the Dogon culture of Mali. When he said he wanted to make a museum of African work, I knew it was not possible as we wouldn’t be able to afford the authentication tools and process. But contemporary art was enjoying some notice so I suggested we go in that direction. With contemporary sculptures, paintings on exhibit, and classical African Statues as part of the museum décor, we opened the museum in 1992. It became an exchange of African and Diaspora contemporary art. We were showing works in Africa (Senegal) of what Africa’s scattered children were doing around the world.

'Untitled' (2010) by Woodrow Nash. Photo credit: Frank Roman.

What does building a collection around the African diaspora mean to you?

The privilege of collecting from your area is satisfying but making the African world your neighbour and inviting other ideas culturally or inventively to be part of the collection is a learning curve I’m blessed to participate in.

'Garden' (2006) by Yafemi Ruth Miller. Photo credit: Ashley Lorraine.

Do you have your eyes on any emerging artists?

Always. Sorta. Yes. Meaning I’m always looking at art. In all its forms – it could be a Renaissance show at a museum or a retrospective of an artist. Sorta, meaning I sorta cruise the web, read about shows, receive invites, and read reviews. Yes, art is part of my everyday life, first thing in the morning last thing at night. It’s an addiction and like all junkies who swear off a “purchase,” I fall off the wagon.

'Black Rooster' (2021) by Sisqo Ndombe. Photo credit: Thom Bennett.

What legacy do you hope to leave behind in art?

I know I knew when I started, that I was collecting something of intrinsic value, something that I wanted others to see … and an opportunity for those unaccustomed to seeing themselves in the glory of paint, wood, marble, glass, and a zillion other imaginative effects, to stop in front of an art piece and be thrilled by seeing the familiar in an unfamiliar medium. I’m very moved by watching others look at the collection and be wowed by a certain recognition, an existence, an I AM.

'Apartheid (A/P)' (1968) by Elizabeth Catlett. Photo credit: Ashley Lorraine.

What do you envision for the future of the arts in Senegal, particularly in terms of art schools and art institutions?

Senegal like many West African states is a fertile bed of craftsmen from the making of statues for worship, for adornment, their use of textiles, glass, raffia, and wood has a long-standing tradition and their contemporary art world also was one of the leading art movements of the 20th century beginning with Senghor’s participation in the 1966 First World Festival of Arts. Senegal continues to produce the Dak’Art Biennale, one of the longest-running art gatherings in Africa. Ironically the state of Senegal fails to fully see the value in the Arts as a measurable commodity and often fails to see the value in artists themselves (as with many other countries) as this requires thinking outside the box, often with added eccentricities and without support.

'Enoch X' (2021) by Barry Yusufu, Photo credit: Thom Bennett.

How would you like to see the African art collector scene evolve in the next few years, both internationally and within the continent?

I think we are a lot of lone wolves. I’d love there to be packs of us exchanging artists' information, and art ideas, looking to show the works publicly.