Seydou Keïta

Seydou Keïta, Untitled 1952

Seydou Keïta was born 1921 in Bamako, Mali. He started experimenting with a Kodak camera his uncle gave him at age sixteen, and opened his photographic studio in 1948. Acknowledged as one of the most important portrait photographers of the 20th century, he produced an iconic body of work that breathes sophistication and modernity.

Institutional exhibitions

Instituto Moreira Salles, Rio do Janeiro, Brazil travelling to Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo, Brazil

2018

Bamako Portraits, FOAM, Amsterdam, Netherlands

2018

Art/Afrique, le nouvel atelier, Fondation Louis Vuitton Paris, France (group show)

2017

Grand Palais, Paris, France

2016

In and Out of the Studio: Photographic Portraits from West Africa, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, United States (group show)

2015

Photographs from the Jean Pigozzi Collection, MAMM – Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, Russia

2013

Portraits from Mali, MOCA – Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH, United States

2007

Faces in the Crowd – Picturing Modern Life from Manet to Today, Whitechapel Gallery, London, England (group show)

2004

Flash Afrique, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria (group show)

2001

You look beautiful like that: The Portrait Photographs of Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States

2001

Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy

2001

Photographs, 1949-1974, Saint Louis Art Museum Saint Louis, MI, United States

1998

Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil

1997

Seydou Keïta, Photographer: Portraits from Bamako, Mali (1950-1960), National Museum for African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C., United States

1996

Self Evident, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England

1995

Seydou Keïta: 1949 à 1962, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, France

1994

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Works

Untitled (three women and a baby)
Untitled (standing woman)
Untitled (Portrait of a woman with folded arms)
Untitled (seated woman)
Untitled (Family)
Untitled (woman with sewing machine)

Seydou Keïta

Untitled (three women and a baby)
Untitled (three women and a baby), 1949
b/w-Photography
60 x 50 cm unframed; 75 x 65 framed