Féral Benga

François "Féral" Benga (8 July 1906 – 13 September 1957) was a Senegalese dancer and became a sought after model of the Harlem Renaissance, his portraits and sculptures taken by Carl Van Vechten, Richmond Barthé and George Platt Lynes among others.

[1] In 1930, Benga starred in The Blood of a Poet, an avant-garde film directed by Jean Cocteau and financed by Charles de Noailles.

This trip exposed Barthé to classical art, but also to performers such as Féral Benga and Josephine Baker.

[4] Cyril Connolly would later said "There was only one book I possessed: Geoffrey Gorer's Africa Dances (Faber, 1935) describing a tour he made with the Senegalese dancer Féral Benga before the last war.

He moved in the Harlem Renaissance circles and had also a brief affair with Kenneth Macpherson, who was at the time in a relationship with an African-American singer, Jimmie Daniels.