Seydou KeitaSeydou Keïta
What began as simple curiosity blossomed into an object of national pride; when Seydou Keita bought a camera to take pictures of his family, neighbors assumed his services were for hire and enlisted him to take portraits of themselves and their homes, turning a carpenter into a photographer and a hobby into artistic expression. In such a way did the self-taught Keita become the official photographer of Mali from 1962 to 1977, based almost solely on his impeccable reputation for quality and originality that developed by word of mouth. This stunning collection of 206 black-and white-portraits illustrates Keita's pride in his country and his gift for capturing the personalities of his subjects.
Malian photographer opened a commercial portrait studio in Bamako, 1948. His subjects were from Mali's middle class, posed formally. His work was discovered in the mid-1990s and exhibited widely in the United States and Europe. There has been controversy over the provenance of prints struck from his negatives..
