Travel on any airline these days and the menus are … boring. This wasn’t always the case, as this striking menu cover by Senegalese artist Diatta Seck (1953-2015) for Air Afrique proves.

Founded in 1961, Air Afrique was a Pan-African airline owned by various West African countries for most of its history. It was established as the official transnational carrier for many francophone (French speaking) West and Central Africa, because many of these countries did not have the capability to create and maintain a national airline. It had its headquarters in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Air Afrique began a steady decline in the early 1980s, yet many years later the company was still considered the most reputable carrier in West Africa, and even one of the top five airlines of Africa. Mismanagement, corruption, and the downturn in the aviation industry after the 11 September 2001 attacks led the airline to a crisis that ended with its liquidation in early 2002.

Seck was part of the first generation of artists at the highly regarded ‘School of Dakar.’
He became a student of Pierre Lods (1921-1988), a young Frenchman who was enthralled by the vivid use of color and figurative style in African art and taught at the renowned National Institute of Arts in Dakar. Seck was honored at the International Festival of Painting in Cagnes sur Mer, France. Other honors were creating stamps for the SOS villages of Senegal, that have been supporting children and young people without parents since the 1970s and illustrating the menus of Air France and Air Afrique.