Malick Sidibé (1935–2016) - Grand vintage unique: portrait de femme au Studio - 1967

Exceptional museum piece (unique "vintage" prints of a similar kind are part of the Centre Pompidou collections in Paris, and the MoMA in New York has just acquired one this year.)
It was the reference system used by Malick Sidibé for ordering prints. Most vintage photos exist in no other form, the prints having not been commissioned and the negatives often having not survived. These photos provide a unique glimpse into social life in Bamako, Mali, in the 1960s and 1970s.

About Malick Sidibé's vintage prints (excerpt from the "Mali Twist" exhibition at the Fondation Cartier):
"I displayed [these prints] in front of the studio where the youths gathered. It was like in the cinema. Some ordered prints without buying them; the most important thing was that the photos be seen."
Ordered by young Bamako residents dressed in the latest fashion, these prints are the memory of moments of joy and pleasure where these youngsters discovered their image magnified by their "friend" Malick Sidibé.

Work exhibited as part of the Rencontres de la photographie in Arles in 2026.