Seydou Keïta changed his studio backdrop every
few years, making it somewhat easier to date the
30,000 negatives he amassed as a portrait
photographer in Mali in the late 1940s through to
1962. Working during the “dawn of decolonization,”
he was later appointed Mali’s official state
photographer. On loan from the collection of
French fashion designer and gallerist Agnes b.,
eclectic and exuberant sartorial style is a
salient feature of Keïta’s portraits of locals and
visitors of all ages and walks of life taken in
the capital city of Bamako. Fashion is also a
subtext in the work of Malick Sidibé, who
beginning in 1957 was Bamako¹s society
photographer. Sidibé picked up where his
predecessor left off, heading out into the city to
put a youthful face on a time of great social and
political change. Dancing in bell-bottoms admixed
with traditional dress, his young people make an
indelible impression. Co-sponsored by the Service
Culturel, Consulat Général de France, Toronto and
with thanks to André Magnin.