The first biography of the Algerian artist Baya Mahieddine, celebrated in mid-twentieth-century Paris, her life shrouded in myth.
On a flower farm in colonial Algeria, a servant and field worker known as Baya escaped the drudgery of her labor by coloring the skirts in fashion magazines. Three years later, in November 1947, her paintings and fanciful clay beasts were featured in a solo show in Paris. She wasn’t yet sixteen years old. In this first biography of Baya, Alice Kaplan tells the story of a young woman seemingly trapped in subsistence who becomes a sensation in the French capital, then mysteriously fades from the history of modern art—only to reemerge after independence as an icon of Algerian artistic heritage.
The toast of Paris for the 1947 season, Baya inspired colonialist fantasies about her “primitive” genius as well as genuine appreciation. She was featured in newspapers, on the radio, and in a newsreel; her art was praised by Breton and Camus, Marchand and Braque. At the dawn of Algerian liberation, her appearance in Paris was used to stage the illusion of French-Algerian friendship, while horrific French massacres in Algeria were still fresh in memory.
Kaplan uncovers the central figures in Baya’s life and the role they played in her artistic career. Among the most poignant was Marguerite Caminat-McEwen-Benhoura, who took Baya from her sister’s farm to Algiers, where Baya worked as Marguerite’s maid and was given paint and brushes. A complex and endearing character, Marguerite—and her Pygmalion ambitions—was decisive in shaping Baya’s destiny. Kaplan also looks closely at Baya’s earliest paintings with an eye to their themes, their palette and design, and their enduring influence.
In vivid prose that brings Baya’s story into the present, Kaplan’s book, the fruit of scrupulous research in Algiers, Blida, Paris, and Provence, allows us to see in a whole new light the beloved artist who signed her paintings simply “Baya.”
"Self-taught Algerian artist Baya Mahieddine has been getting more attention than ever, and her personal story is part of the reason we can’t get enough of her. While her art is vibrant and eludes easy characterization, her story is the stuff of legend in our biography-obsessed age. . . . If you think this is enticing, then you’ll love this volume that tells her story, which intersects with what feels like every sphere of French intellectual life in the 20th century." - Hyperallergic
"“The Algerian artist Baya found fame at just 16, when her colourful paintings and clay models caught the eye of a French dealer, who invited her to exhibit in Paris in 1947. The first biography of this enigmatic figure tells her story in evocative prose.”" - Apollo
"“Kaplan — a diligent researcher with an exceptional gift for storytelling — does not shirk from the challenging task of untangling the myriad and complicated threads of the story. The book covers the whole arc of Baya’s life, from her early years as a poor and mistreated orphan to her life as a comfortably situated wife and the mother of six children, who eventually returned to her painting and ultimately became known as one of Algeria’s most beloved artists. . . . Seeing Baya is a fascinating story, and it is surpassingly well told in this book.”" - Bonjour Paris
Формат: Скан PDf
On a flower farm in colonial Algeria, a servant and field worker known as Baya escaped the drudgery of her labor by coloring the skirts in fashion magazines. Three years later, in November 1947, her paintings and fanciful clay beasts were featured in a solo show in Paris. She wasn’t yet sixteen years old. In this first biography of Baya, Alice Kaplan tells the story of a young woman seemingly trapped in subsistence who becomes a sensation in the French capital, then mysteriously fades from the history of modern art—only to reemerge after independence as an icon of Algerian artistic heritage.
The toast of Paris for the 1947 season, Baya inspired colonialist fantasies about her “primitive” genius as well as genuine appreciation. She was featured in newspapers, on the radio, and in a newsreel; her art was praised by Breton and Camus, Marchand and Braque. At the dawn of Algerian liberation, her appearance in Paris was used to stage the illusion of French-Algerian friendship, while horrific French massacres in Algeria were still fresh in memory.
Kaplan uncovers the central figures in Baya’s life and the role they played in her artistic career. Among the most poignant was Marguerite Caminat-McEwen-Benhoura, who took Baya from her sister’s farm to Algiers, where Baya worked as Marguerite’s maid and was given paint and brushes. A complex and endearing character, Marguerite—and her Pygmalion ambitions—was decisive in shaping Baya’s destiny. Kaplan also looks closely at Baya’s earliest paintings with an eye to their themes, their palette and design, and their enduring influence.
In vivid prose that brings Baya’s story into the present, Kaplan’s book, the fruit of scrupulous research in Algiers, Blida, Paris, and Provence, allows us to see in a whole new light the beloved artist who signed her paintings simply “Baya.”
"Self-taught Algerian artist Baya Mahieddine has been getting more attention than ever, and her personal story is part of the reason we can’t get enough of her. While her art is vibrant and eludes easy characterization, her story is the stuff of legend in our biography-obsessed age. . . . If you think this is enticing, then you’ll love this volume that tells her story, which intersects with what feels like every sphere of French intellectual life in the 20th century." - Hyperallergic
"“The Algerian artist Baya found fame at just 16, when her colourful paintings and clay models caught the eye of a French dealer, who invited her to exhibit in Paris in 1947. The first biography of this enigmatic figure tells her story in evocative prose.”" - Apollo
"“Kaplan — a diligent researcher with an exceptional gift for storytelling — does not shirk from the challenging task of untangling the myriad and complicated threads of the story. The book covers the whole arc of Baya’s life, from her early years as a poor and mistreated orphan to her life as a comfortably situated wife and the mother of six children, who eventually returned to her painting and ultimately became known as one of Algeria’s most beloved artists. . . . Seeing Baya is a fascinating story, and it is surpassingly well told in this book.”" - Bonjour Paris
Формат: Скан PDf
https://www.yakaboo.ua/ua/seeing-baya-portrait-of-an-algerian-artist-in-paris.html