Untitled

Label TextTaken at night, Malick Sidibé’s photograph captures a couple wearing fashionable 1960s clothing in the camera’s flash. The artist made his name as a street photographer, recording the people of the city of Bamako as Mali transformed from a French colony to an independent nation. A fixture of the city’s nightlife, Sidibé roamed the streets, documenting dancing and celebration within the quickly modernizing city. This photograph was taken during such an excursion. The frame is a later addition, created through a reverse-glass painting technique known as souwere. Such frames signaled the photograph’s role as a keepsake, intended for display in the home or exchange with friends. This small-scale print may have been posted on the window of the artist’s studio as an advertisement to those who would stop by to see images from social events and perhaps purchase reproductions. It might also have been produced as one of a series of such prints made for purchase.
Exhibition History

DimensionsFrame: 10 1/2 x 8 in. (26.7 x 20.3 cm)
Image: 4 1/2 x 3 1/4 in. (11.4 x 8.3 cm)

Accession Number 2025.41

Classificationsphotograph

SignedMalick Sidibe MS 2004 (verso center of frame, blue ink)

Inscriptions1967 (verso center of frame, blue ink)

ProvenanceStudio of the Artist (Jack Shainman Gallery); Des Moines Art Center [gift from the previous, 2025]