Photographs of Mali on the Cusp of Independence

"soil forms the literal foundation of so many photographs by the Malian photographer Seydou Keïta. In one such picture-of two forward-leaning women in long, sumptuous dresses-the prosaic roughness of dirt seems, perhaps, firmly at odds with how splendidly ornamented the sitters are; it is an element of sheer bathos when read against their beautifully patterned garments (even in black-and-white the designs seem to vibrate), their lustrous jewelry and skin, their nonchalant elegance, so present in their postures and hands and eyes."

"Born in Bamako sometime between 1921 and 1923, Keïta began taking pictures in 1935, when his uncle gifted him a Kodak Brownie flash camera. After cultivating his gaze for more than a decade-while training alongside the Bamakois photographer Mountaga Dembélé-he opened his own studio in 1948. Fifteen prolific years of studio photography ended in 1963, after Keïta was hired as Mali's state photographer, forcing him to close the studio."

Seydou Keïta’s studio portraits pair elaborately patterned clothing and poised sitters with conspicuous, unadorned soil to anchor images in Mali’s specific place and climate. Keïta was born in Bamako around 1921–1923 and began photographing in 1935 after receiving a Kodak Brownie; he trained with Mountaga Dembélé and opened a studio in 1948. Fifteen prolific years of studio work ended in 1963 when he became Mali’s state photographer. Keïta retired in 1977 and died in 2001. The studio images’ panache, sensuality, and dense visual detail have secured his central place in West African twentieth-century photography, and a retrospective appears at the Brooklyn Museum.

Read at The New Yorker