Tribal Portraits - Shapero Rare Books

102. KEITA, Seydou.
Untitled (Young Couple).
[c.1956, printed 1998]. Gelatin silver print. Very good condition, signed and
dated in ink in the margin. Dimensions: 520 by 375mm.
(20.5 by 15 inches).
When Keita was first shown in New York at the Gagosian
Gallery in 1997 the show created quite a stir. Margarett
Loke, writing in The New York Times, described Seydou
Keïta as “the man who brought renewed vitality to the art
of photographic portraiture.” The photos on the wall of
the Gagosian were very large later prints (48 by 60 inches)
from the negatives taken in Africa during the 1950’s.
Since he was introduced to the contemporary photography
market his name has become synonymous with modern
African photography, making its way into collections
all over the world. His portraits are captivating and very
modern. Before the Gagosian show he was shown in Paris
at the Cartier Foundation and the Scalo Gallery in Zurich in
1997 both of which showed images reproduced to 20 by
24 inches (original size being 5 by 7 inches).
In 1948 he set up a commercial studio in downtown
Bamako. He was poor, so he made prints using a 5-by-7-
inch view camera, by placing the negative directly against
the photographic paper, used his bed sheet as a backdrop,
and photographed outdoors using available light. Despite
these basic technical obstacles, he revealed his subjects
as they had not been seen before: wearing Western suits
and bow ties, sitting on motorbikes or holding radios.
Furthermore, it was a mixture of Western dress and African
poses, African dress and Western poses which gave these
portraits such an edge of originality.
ref: 78160 £8,500
74 Tribal Portraits
Bernard J Shapero Rare Books