Seydou Keïta is born in 1921 in Bamako (Mali) and died in 2001 in Paris (France).
Since 1991, the year he met André Magnin and Jean Pigozzi who both greatly contributed to the international recognition of African contemporary art, Seydou Keïta's works has been showcased all throughout the world and especially in great retrospective show held at the Grand Palais, in Paris (France).
Seydou Keïta's work was recently featured in solo shows at the Galerie Nathalie Obadia of Brussels (Belgium, 2016), the Tate Modern of London (United-Kingdom, 2008), Seydou Keita: Portraits from Mali (USA, 2007) at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, the William Bennington Museum of Art, Mali Portraits by Seydou Keïta (USA, 2003) at The University of Connecticut in Storrs, the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome (Italy, 2001), the Saint Louis Museum of Art (USA, 1998), the Museum of Modern Art of San Francisco (USA, 1997), the Pinacoteca o Estado de Sao Paulo (Brazil, 1997), the Minneapolis Institute of Art (USA, 1996), Seydou Keïta, Photographer : Portraits from Bamako at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute in Washington (USA, 1996), the Espace Fernand Léger in Montreuil (France, 1995), the Centre National de la Photographie de Paris (France, 1995), Black Movie at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire à La Chaux de fonds de Saint Gervais in Geneva (Switzerland, 1994), the Ginza Shiseido Art Space of Tokyo (Japan, 1994), the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris (France, 1994).
His work has been showcased in major exhibitions held in prestigious institutions like Autophoto at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris (France, 2017), AFRICA. Raccontare un mondo at the Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea Milano in Milan (Italy, 2017), Trésors de l'islam en Afrique, De Tombouctou à Zanzibar at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris (France, 2017), Art/Afrique, Le Nouvel atelier at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (France, 2017), Making Africa, A continent of Contemporary Design at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona in Barcelona (Spain, 2017), In and Out of the Studio: Photographic Portraits from West Africa at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York (USA, 2015), Après Eden, la Collection Walther at La Maison Rouge of Paris (France, 2015), Look at Me! at the Tropenmuseum of Amsterdam (The Netherlands, 2014), Malian Portrait Photography at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz (USA, 2013), Who, What, Wear. Selections from the Permanent Collection at the Studio Museum Harlem in New York (USA, 2012), Africa/ Africa at the Centre d'art contemporain in Meymac (France, 2012), África: Objetos y Sujetos, Teatro Fernán Gómez at the Centro de Arte in Madrid (Spain, 2011), Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity at the Contemporary African Photography from the Walther Collection in Neu-Ulm (Germany, 2010), 100% Africa at the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao (Spain, 2006), African Art Now: Masterpieces from the Jean Pigozzi Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (USA, 2005), Faces in the Crowd : Images of Modern Life from Manet to Today at the Whitechapel Art gallery in London (UK, 2004), Joy of Life - Two Photographers from Africa at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo (Japan, 2004).
Seydou Keïta's works are also featured in prestigious international public collections such as the Eileen Harris and Peter Norton Collection (Santa Monica), the MOMA (New York), the Metropolitan Museum Art (New York), the Bronx Museum of Art (New York), the LACMA (Los Angeles), the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum (Detroit), the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia), the State Art Collection (Washington), the Akron Art Museum (Akron), the Fogg Art Museum - The Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge), the Princeton University Art Museum (Princeton), The University of Chicago, the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art - University of Florida (Gainesville), the Michael C. Carlos Museum - Emory University (Atlanta), the Saint Louis Museum of Art, the 21C Museum (Louisville), the William Benton Museum of Art - University of Connecticut (Storrs) in the USA ; the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Fonds National d'Art Contemporain and the Agnès B. Collection (Paris) in France ; The Walther Collection (Neu-Ulm) in Germany; the Moderna Museet (Stockholm) in Sweden; the Douglas Hyde Gallery (Dublin) in Ireland; the Collection Nationale du Crédit Suisse (Geneva), the Contemporary African Art Collection - The Pigozzi Collection (Geneva) in Switzerland and the Musée National du Mali (Bamako) in Africa.
Seydou Keïta's works have been represented by la Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Bruxelles, since 2016.