Modern Arab art revolutionised by Baya

But what a splendid (re)discovery of Baya's work on the occasion of the exhibition devoted to her by the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris! The harmony of her vivid colours, the strength of her features, the power of her compositions... everything makes you want to lose yourself in the work of this artist, born Fatma Haddad on 12 December 1931 near Algiers. Especially as her life is not to be outdone! Orphaned of her father at the age of 6, then also of her mother at the age of 9, the little girl was taken in by her grandmother, an agricultural worker, and worked on settlers' farms in Fort-de-l'Eau, where she looked after the animals instead of going to school. As in a fairy tale, a "godmother" looks after her destiny when she sees her drawing in the sand and sculpting in the earth. It was the sister of her bosses, Marguerite Caminat (1903-1987), a painter from Toulouse and wife of Franck Mac Ewen (1907-1974), also an artist. She obtained permission from her grandmother to take her into her service in Algiers.

From then on, things went from strength to strength, and little Fatma, who did the housework and shopping in the morning, had plenty of time to sign Baya in the afternoon for the paintings and sculptures that Marguerite encouraged her to produce. Her mother's name, Bahia, is the name she will never stop representing. The flowers and birds that invaded the flat, the art magazines and catalogues, the gouache and clay at will, the artistic acquaintances of her new employers: everything inspired the young girl. In 1947, Marguerite Caminat had the traces of ill-treatment that her protégée suffered at the hands of her uncle noted each time she returned to see her grandmother. And the guardianship judge in Algiers gave her custody until she came of age.

That same year, the French painter and visual artist Jean Peyrissac, who lived in Algiers and was a friend of Marguerite Caminat, took advantage of a visit to his home by Aimé Maeght, whose art gallery had been inaugurated two years earlier in Paris, to show him Baya's works of art. The man who, with his family, was to become the travelling companion of Matisse, Braque, Léger, Miro, Chagall, Calder, Giacometti... who exhibited works of art for sale by all the major post-war artists such as Bram van Velde, Antoni Tapies, Raoul Ubac, Jean Signovert, Pierre Tal Coat, Jean Bazaine, Eduardo Chililida, Pierre Alechinsky, Paul Rebeyrolle, Adami, Jacques Monori and many others... decided to exhibit Baya in his art gallery in Paris in November 1947. It was the consecration. The young artist was 16 years old.

"At Maeght's, all the artists and collectors of Paris flocked to the house, and Baya caused a sensation in the French newspapers and magazines," wrote Olympe Lemut in the art magazine L'Oeil in January. Anissa Boyaed, curator of the exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe with Djamila Chakour and Claude Lemand, notes that "from that time onwards, journalists tended to essentialise her art, using terms tinged with orientalism to describe it. Terms such as "a thousand and one nights", "oriental luxury", "paradisiacal decor"... André Breton, Jean Peyrissac and Emile Dermenghem prefaced the issue of "Derrière le miroir" which was devoted to Baya. The magazine "Vogue" published a photo of the young artist in February 1948 with an article by Edmonde Charles-Roux. Baya met Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso... Dubuffet was interested in her work, and she was dazzled by that of Matisse.

Nevertheless, even though, from this period onwards, "the great characteristics of Baya's style are present, notably the female figures with flared dresses and animals", even though she "paints and draws without respite, refining her style and establishing a unique aesthetic", also drawing on her Kabyle culture, the artist will cease to participate in artistic cultural life completely from 1953 to 1962. Her legal guardian in Algiers placed her in 1952 in Blida with the family of a teacher, and a year later she became the second wife of the musician El Hadj Mahfoud Mahjeddine, thirty years her senior, with whom she had six children. She continued to paint and sculpt at home, in Blida, where she remained until her death, but did not exhibit any works of art for sale during this time.

It was not until the advent of Algerian independence that Baya's creative expression burst forth, inexorably overflowing the confines of her home. The richest period of her work began. "She then exhibited throughout the Maghreb and the Arab world, notably in Beirut in 1978, and her work began to interest the Americans," the L'Oeil journalist points out. "Marguerite ensured that some of her works were included in museum collections, such as the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Algiers under the direction of Jean de Maisonseul, then the Art Brut collection in Lausanne in 1978, on the recommendation of Dubuffet. Paradoxically, French critics neglected Baya's work, perhaps because of the heavy atmosphere that hampered relations with independent Algeria. It was not until 1982 that a monographic exhibition was devoted to her in France, thanks to Edmonde Charles-Roux, at the Musée Cantini in Marseille.

"Baya is undoubtedly the great Algerian artist who "added a universal work to the world", writes historian Anissa Bouyaed today. "She burst onto the art scene at the end of the colonial period and, with intelligence and spontaneity, was able to extricate herself from colonial determinisms to become the first Algerian woman artist to be consecrated on the Parisian and international scene. Her work, often wrongly described as naïve art or art brut, has greatly influenced subsequent generations of artists, particularly in Algeria where she was much imitated after independence, for her singularity, refinement and spiritual dimension.

Baya's works, preserved at the Museum of the Arab World Institute and currently presented in the exhibition "Baya, Icon of Algerian Painting", augmented by the donation of Claude and France Lemand, whose art gallery in Paris has always defended the Algerian artist's paintings for sale, form an ensemble documenting all of her periods of activity, from 1947 until her death in 1998. They complement the fabulous treasure of the Archives nationales d'Outre-Mer in Aix-en-Provence and other loans. The ensemble thus allows us to grasp the evolution of his painting - with, in particular, the introduction of the theme of music from the 1960s onwards - up to the moving works of 1998, the last ones produced by the artist.