Man in Fedora

Seydou Keïta

1955 · Film, emulsion · Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

Original film negative. The subject is a male figure who stands frontally with his hands at his side. He wears a pair of loose white trousers with a black blazer over top. His fedora sits askew on his head and he breaks with formal conventions of portraiture to smile at the camera. The backdrop is a textile without any pattern, which lets us see parts of the wall behind it. On the lower right hand corner of the negative, a reversed date stamp reveals when it was developed.

Artist

Seydou Keïta

Date

1955

Medium

Film, emulsion

Department

Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

Credit line

Gift of Susan Mullin Vogel, 2015