Seydou Keïta

Considered to be one of the great Malian masters of portrait photography, Seydou Keïta’s hour of glory was in the 1950s and 1960s in Bamako. This self-taught photographer specialized in commissions of portrait art in black and white, using a 13 × 18 cm chamber and natural lighting. His studio was in a lively neighborhood and rapidly became an obligatory stopping-point for the people of Bamako. Seydou Keïta had his “clients” pose alone, as a couple, as a family, or at their leisure, framed head-and-shoulders or full length in front of patterned drapes, sometimes with an object that symbolized their trade or else a familiar item of some sort.
For Seydou Keïta’s first personal exhibition in 1994 in France, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain published a book featuring a selection of photographs, an interview with the artist by André Magnin and a text by Malian writer Issa Baba Traoré. This book is a testimony to the special singularity of Seydou Keïta’s work, which constitutes an authentic and irreplaceable memory of Malian society through its inventory of outfits, adornments, poses, attitudes, and expressions.