Scholar/photographer Christopher D. Roy has contributed 3,500 images of African art and culture to the Artstor Digital Library. The selection includes art and ceremonial objects, as well as documentation of their social context, use, and manufacture — whether performances employing masks, or techniques used in producing pottery, iron, leather, and weaving.

Since 1970, Roy has been photographing the rural villages and towns of the Bobo, Bwa, Fulani, Lobi, Mossi, and Nuna peoples in West Africa — primarily in Burkina Faso, but also in Ghana, Nigeria, and Niger. He has used his field photography to produce numerous educational resources (films, CDs, and DVDs) to support the teaching of African art history and anthropology at high schools, colleges, and universities across the United States.

Christopher D. Roy is Professor and Elizabeth M. Stanley Faculty Fellow of African Art History at the University of Iowa. He teaches courses in African, Pre-Columbian, Native American, and Pacific Islands art. He received his PhD in African art history from Indiana University (1979) and his research focuses on the art of Burkina Faso and West Africa. Roy is the founder and director of the Program for Advanced Study of Art and Life in Africa (PASALA), an interdisciplinary program focused on the visual arts of Africa.