Malick Sidibé documented an important period of West African history with great commitment, enthusiasm and insight, focusing on Malian youth in the 1950s and 60s. His portraits and documentary photography captured the unique atmosphere and vitality of an African capital in a period of great euphoria. From the earliest days of the postcolonial period, Sidibé was a privileged witness to a period of tremendous, euphoric cultural change. As a young but well thought-of photographer, he captured a time of paradigm shift and youthful insouciance, with a lot of curiosity about the rest of the world, pride, and confidence in the future.
Sidibé learnt the basic skills of studio photography as an apprentice and then he began making reportage photographs. Since then he has been devoted to photography. His portraits and documentary photographs, from the late 1950s to the mid 1970s, now bear witness to the cultural and social development of post-colonial Mali. We see joy, hope, beauty and power in these psychologically captivating images. Sidibé’s work, originally intended for an African audience, is a unique memoir and testimony to a world audience.