Robert Farris Thompson is the Colonel John Trumbull Professor of the History of Art at Yale University. He lived in the Yoruba region of southwest Nigeria for many years while he conducted his research of Yoruba arts history.Thompson is one of America's most prominent scholars of African art, and has presided over exhibitions of African art at the National Gallery in Washington D. C..
He is affiliated with the University of Ibadan and frequented Yoruba village communities. Thompson has also studied the African arts of the diaspora in the United States, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and several Caribbean islands. Robert Farris Thompson is also an authority on hip hop culture.
Beginning with an article on Afro-Cuban dance and music (published in 1958), Thompson has dedicated his life to the study of art history of the Afro-Atlantic world.[His first book was Black Gods and Kings, which was a close reading of the art history of the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria (population of approximately 40 million).Other published works include- African Art in Motion, Flash of the Spirit (1983), Face of the Gods, and Tango: The Art History of Love (2005). Thompson also published an introduction to the diaries of Keith Haring.