Baptême chez Jafuna

Malick Sidibé

ca. 1968 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

In the decades before and after Mali achieved independence from France in 1960, Sidibé operated a highly regarded commercial photography studio in the capital city of Bamako and made thousands of portraits for a burgeoning middle class. His work first came to the attention of the art world in 1995, when the Paris-based Fondation Cartier exhibited his lively images of Bamako youth taken at parties and Sunday picnics. This print of two women looking at a picture and a stylish young man directly addressing the camera—while all three are "nonchalantly" arranged in pyramidal composition—highlights the self-consciousness and skill with which Sidibé and his subjects represented themselves to the contemporary world.

Artist

Malick Sidibé

Date

ca. 1968

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2003