Early life and career
Maiga was born in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, in 1932. He trained as a mason in Timbuktu,[1] but entered photography in the early 1950s via photojournalism and his first medium format camera.[2] After completing his apprenticeship, Maiga bought a set of photo lab equipment from a Ghanaian colleague.[3] He opened his first studio in N'Gouma—a Malian Mopti region village—in 1958,[2] and set out traveling along the Niger River looking for work, meeting interesting people, and practicing his photography fundamentals[3] with the painted backdrops he transported.[4] In this two-year period, he developed a style of outdoor studio portraits.[1] His subjects had never before been photographed[3] and some had never before seen a camera.[2] Back in Timbuktu, he opened a studio where he photographed figures across politics, sports, and the arts.[2] Maiga chose the costume, props, and painted backdrops for each portrait.[5] His subjects would pose in the style of pop culture idols, flaunt amenities like cigarettes and radios, and dress in an eclectic style of blended Western and African sensibilities.[2] His work captured Mali's societal transition from a French colony to a sovereign nation. He opened a studio in Bamako in 1973.[1]
Maiga was among the Malian pioneers in post-colonial studio photography between the 1950s and 1970s.[6] Maiga is acknowledged as a major figure in Malian portrait photography.[7][4] Maiga's work was largely unknown to Western audiences before art dealer Jack Bell discovered Maiga's negatives in the early 2010s—while Maiga was in his 80s—and brought the work to a wider audience. Bell hosted Maiga's first solo exhibition, Talking Timbuktu, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London acquired some of Maiga's work.[3][2][5]
In 2016, Maiga's work was exhibited in the New York 1:54 fair[8][9] and in a solo exhibition at the Peruvian Museo Mario Testino as part of its series on masters of photography.[2] The museum placed Maiga in the tradition of itinerant photographers such as Martín Chambi and the Vargas brothers.[2]
Maiga resides in Bamako.[2]
