Here’s news of an exhibition that looks fascinating: ‘Baya, une héroïne algérienne de l’Art moderne’.
Baya is the pseudonyme of Fatma Haddad (Bordj el Kiffan, 1931 – Blida, 1998). This is a retrospective with over 100 works, paintings, drawings and ceramics – which have been chosen to introduce her work to a wider public.
It was first shown at the Institut du monde arabe in Paris and has just opened in Marseille. Here it has been augmented by extra items and documents taken from her archives held in Aix. The expo introduces a young woman who, like 98% of native girls of her generation, was uneducated, plus she suffered from the turmoil at the end of the colonial period.
But she taught herself to paint and use colour to create a style of her own, illustrating a world of women in their ‘Jardin d’Eden’. Here, safe from the world outside, they are surrounded by birds, butterflies, lush vegetation and music. Baya was enormously successful by the age of 16. She dazzled artists and critics in Paris even scoring a Vogue double page spread in 1948.
You can find out more in this short film: https://vieille-charite-marseille.com/expositions/baya-une-heroine-algerienne-de-l-art-moderne
or read more here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baya_(artist)
I can’t wait to see this. Luckily we have til 24 September to do so.
At the Vieille Charité, Marseille
aixcentric 
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