Frédéric Bruly Bouabré was born in 1919 in Zéprégühé, on the Ivory Coast. He is a thinker, philosopher, researcher, “seeker”, pedagogue, prophet, poet, artist, designer, encyclopaedist and more. The origins of his whole œuvre is linked to a "celestial" vision on March 11, 1948. From this day on, he was charged with the mission of communicating the knowledges of the world, and particularly to his Bété people. He thus invented an alphabet to transcribe his language and re-transcribe all of the languages of the world. Théodore Monod published Alphabet for the first time in 1958.

It is through his series of drawings that he came to fame on the international art scene when André Magnin presented them at the exhibition "Magiciens de la Terre" at the Centre Pompidou and at the Grande Halle de la Villette in 1989. His work has since been largely exhibited in Europe and in the United States.