Malian photographer Malick Sidibé dies aged 80

Malick Sidibé, the Malian photographer who chronicled his country’s burgeoning pop culture in the years after independence, died at the age of 80 on 15th April 2016.

•    Sidibé’s dynamic black-and-white shots captured the energy, hope and nightlife of a generation of young ­Africans across two decades of social, cultural and political change.
•    Born in what was then French Sudan in 1936 (or 1935; in interviews he could never remember which), Sidibé only started school at 10, when he could be spared from shepherding duties by his father. 
•    He became known among his classmates and teachers as an accomplished artist, and in 1952 won a place at the École des Artisans Soudanais in Bamako.
•    He got his photographic break working in the studio of Bamako’s leading society ­photo­grapher, Gérard Guillat. Sidibé spent his nights cycling between nightclubs, photographing party-goers into the small hours with his Brownie camera. His portraits proved so popular that he set up his own studio in 1962 and became known as “the Eye of Bamako”.
•    Sidibé’s archive from those years totals tens of thousands of negatives, and his photographs are now held in collections across the world, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Getty Museum in California.
•    In 2007, he became the first photographer – and the first African – to be awarded the Golden Lion lifetime achievement award at the Venice Biennale.