Now celebrated as the father of African photography, Seydou Keïta (ca. 1921–2001) operated a busy studio in Bamako, Mali (until 1960, French Sudan), between 1948 and 1963, a time of radical transformation—from rural to urban and from colonial to postcolonial—both in that country and across Africa. The thousands of people Keïta photographed during those years represented a cross-section of Malian society that encompassed, among others, Bamako cultural elites, ordinary citizens, nomads, students, and army officers.
While Keïta did style his subjects—fanning out a skirt here, adjusting the position of a hand there, and even providing European clothing, watches, motorcycles, cars, and radios as props—he also encouraged their active participation in the process. Much of his studio’s popularity among Bamakois rested in his skill at presenting them, and allowing them to present themselves, as they wished to be seen: elegant, cosmopolitan, and above all, modern.
In 1963 Keïta was forced to close his studio by Mali’s post-independence socialist government and start work as its official photographer. His studio portraits were anonymously exhibited for the first time in the West in 1991 in a group show at New York’s Museum for African Art; a subsequent solo show at the Fondation Cartier in Paris in 1994—of prints made from negatives brought to France from Mali—was a sensation, sparking an explosion of interest in Keïta’s work as well as in African photography in general. With international fame came more new prints, made both in Keïta’s lifetime and after his death. Larger in scale and cooler in tone than the original photographs, they are now how most contemporary viewers experience Keïta’s images.
To Western scholars and curators, Keïta’s photographs—coinciding with the lead-up to, and early years of, Malian independence—are both captivating portraits of self-defined individuals and an important record of African life at a moment of transition. To Keïta’s Malian clients, the photos were much more. Pocket-size and made for personal use, they signaled worldly success, commemorated special events and holidays, assisted in matchmaking, and even served as talismans.
On view now at the Brooklyn Museum, the exhibition “Seydou Keïta: A Tactile Lens” focuses on the latter aspect of Keïta’s photographs, emphasizing the role of self-fashioning in their creation. Organized by guest curator Catherine E. McKinley with Imani Williford, the museum’s curatorial assistant for photography, fashion, and material culture, it features more than 200 photographs, including negatives and vintage prints, as well as examples of clothing, jewelry, and textiles. With that show on view through March 8, below is a guide to five of Keïta’s key works.
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Untitled, 1956
Image Credit: Courtesy of The Jean Pigozzi Collection of African Art and Danziger Gallery, New York.
Keïta was born at some point between 1921 and 1923 in Bamako, at the time the capital of French Sudan and later of Mali, which gained independence in 1960. He was given his first camera at age 14 by an uncle; in his late twenties, while working as a carpenter, he apprenticed himself to Mountaga Dembélé (1919–2004), the first Black photographer to have a successful photo studio in Bamako. In 1948 Keïta opened his own atelier in front of the compound that served as home to him and his large extended family. He would often use up unfinished rolls of film on pictures of himself—like the gentle self-portrait above—and of his wives, children, and relatives.
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Untitled, 1949–51
Image Credit: Copyright © SKPEAC/Seydou Keïta. Courtesy of The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection and Danziger Gallery, New York.
While the identity of most of his subjects is unknown, this sitter was a close friend of Keïta’s and, with him, part of a group of well-dressed men known as “The Gentlemen.” Dandling one of his children on his lap, he wears a West African man’s costume consisting of drawstring pants, shirt, and boubou, a style of robe, often lavishly embroidered, that is still ubiquitous in the region. While European clothes and fabrics were prized by wealthy Malians before World War II, during the independence era the boubou became a symbol of quiet resistance to French colonialism. The backdrop, however, is a French damask coverlet from Keïta’s own bedroom.
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Untitled, 1954
Image Credit: Copyright © SKPEAC/Seydou Keïta. Courtesy of The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection and Danziger Gallery, New York.
Among the props Keïta made available to his clients was his beloved Peugeot 203 motorcar—one of only two in Bamako, the other belonging to the colonial governor, Edmond Louveau. Reflected in the automobile’s right front bumper is Keïta himself, standing behind his camera and tripod. Like midcentury photographer Lee Friedlander, who often incorporated his own shadow or reflection into his pictures of American life, Keïta here positions himself as part of the social environment he was documenting.
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Untitled, 1953–57
Image Credit: Copyright © SKPEAC/Seydou Keïta. Courtesy of The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection and Danziger Gallery, New York.
One of Keïta’s most iconic photos, this portrait—in which its dignified subject nearly disappears into a flurry of competing patterns—is a study in opposing cultural markers. While the checked blanket on which she reclines is African, the wildly patterned fabric behind her is likely European. And, though her flowered women’s boubou and strings of carnelian beads are traditional, her watch is new and her head covering is a scarf tied low at one side à la de Gaulle, a fashion trend of the day.
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Untitled, late 1940s to mid-1970s
Image Credit: Courtesy of the Seydou Keïta Family.
In this photograph, possibly taken after Keïta closed his studio, a young woman boldly sports an Afro, towering platform shoes, and a watch with a wide band and extra-large face. By the 1960s, a new generation of Malians, critical of their elders’ infatuation with imported goods, were coming of age. Ironically, though, they in turn would become entranced by African-American and British music, dances, and clothing during the 1960s and 1970s. This was in direct opposition to the emphasis on traditional values by Mali’s post-independence socialist government and, after 1968, its military regime. Their youthful rebelliousness would later be memorialized by, among others, Keïta’s mentee, photographer Malick Sidibé (1935–2016).
