artist/ Malick Sidibé

Mali

MALICK SIDIBÉ (1935–2016, MALI)

“I am a naturalistic portraitist, not a philosophical one,” Malick Sidibé liked to repeat. He was introduced to the wider world in 1994 at the Bamako African Photography Encounters. The first African photographer to receive the Hasselblad Award, his entire body of work was honoured with a Golden Lion at the Venice International Biennale.

Born in 1936 in Soloba, Malick Sidibé was a man deeply rooted in his origins, who never forgot his childhood as a Fulani farmer. Since 1962, his celebrated studio in Bamako has attracted crowds of anonymous individuals and celebrities eager to have their portraits taken by this exceptional portraitist, who constantly sought to renew and deepen his art.

Gifted with an innate sense of community and a benevolent empathy for his fellow human beings, Malick Sidibé captured with remarkable precision both the collective and individual diversity of his contemporaries. The extensive body of his reportage work also constitutes an unparalleled documentary record of Mali’s history.

Like that of his illustrious predecessor August Sander, Malick Sidibé’s portraiture occupies a significant place in the universal history of photography. His works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Fondation Cartier in Paris.