SEYDOU KEïTA, A Tactile Lens

256pp., b/w & colour illus., hardback, Brooklyn Museum and DelMonico Books, New York, 2025

ISBN: 9781636811888

Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Brooklyn Museum, October 2025-March 2026.

A comprehensive overview of the work of the great Malian photographer Seydou Keïta. Drawing from across Keïta's oeuvre and informed by contributions from the Keïta family, this lavishly illustrated volume explores how Keïta's portraits capture Malian culture during an era of radical political and social transformation.

With essays by J. Luca Ackerman, Jennifer Bajorek, Duncan Clarke, Thomas Dyja, Howard W. French, Patricia Gérimont, Sana Ginwalla, Awa Konaté, and Drew Sawyer.

Seydou Keïta was born in Bamako, Mali (ca. 1921), and spent his youth working as a carpenter. After receiving a Kodak Brownie Flash camera as a gift from his uncle in 1935 he began to take photographs of family and friends. He learned photography and how to develop from Pierre Garnier, a French photographic supply store owner, and from Mountaga Traoré. After setting up a studio in the family home he began taking photographs of clients, and between 1948 and 1963 photographed thousands of Malians and West Africans, becoming well known across the region for his signature style. In the early 1990s, his work reached Western viewers. He died in 2001 in Paris.