You Look Beautiful Like That: The Portrait Photographs of Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé

The catalog of an exhibition organized by the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard U., on view during fall 2001. It presents work from a highly regarded commercial photography studio that operated in Mali’s capital, Bamako, in the decades before and after independence from France in 1960. The warm-toned b&w portraits combine formulas of Western portrait photography with local aesthetics to create images that are both souvenirs of special moments and also symbols of wealth and the sitters’ status in the community. In addition to reproducing more than 70 portraits, the catalog includes excerpts of recent interviews with the photographers and an essay placing their work within the context of the history of portrait photography in West Africa. Harvard University Art Museums published the book (ISBN 1-891771-20-5); distribution is by Yale U. Press under ISBN 0-300-09188-5. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)