Seijdou Keïta - Monograph - 2022

SEYDOU KEÏTA
,RMN 2002
New in blister pack.

Astute portraitist of the 20th century, Seydou Keïta is today regarded as one of the greatest contemporary photographers. In 1935, returning from a stay in Senegal, his uncle gave him his first camera, a Kodak Brownie: Keïta, then fourteen years old, began photographing his relatives before acquiring a 13x18 studio camera. He opened his studio in 1948 and specialized in the art of black-and-white portraiture. Quickly, his mastery of technique and his aesthetic sense established him as a portraitist, and all Bamako came to his studio: people would come to have their portraits taken alone, in couples, in families, or in groups. Setting his subjects in front of fabrics, the artist works on staging his shots: adjusting poses, lending for the occasion clothes, jewelry or accessories, he seeks to give the most beautiful image of his clients. Until Mali’s independence, in 1960, Seydou Keïta produced several thousand portraits of his fellow citizens: thus his photos also constitute a unique testimony of Malian society in the 1950s.