Baya, the miraculous life of the great Algerian artist

Baya, born Fatma Haddad (1931-1998), is the best-known Algerian painter in France. From her first exhibition in Paris in 1947 at La Galerie Maeght, under the patronage of the surrealist poet and writer André Breton, to the retrospective in Paris and Marseille in 2023, Baya continues to arouse enthusiasm and amazement. 

That's exactly how I felt as I wandered in wonder and excitement through the halls of the Centre de la Vieille Charité in Marseille, hall after hall, on that unforgettable morning, in the summer of 2023, in front of the colorful works in which women and girls are held in love and affection in a paradise of flora and fauna from the land of dreams. How much joy, movement, harmony, imagination and poetry in the works in which figures, nature and objects are integrated and intertwined, calling on the viewer to give them meaning! Strong, vibrant, open art. My heart stopped beating.

The exhibition in Marseille was born from a collaboration between the local museum and the Arab World Institute in Paris. In Marseille, the exhibition was supplemented by archival documents, including letters in Baya's handwriting, and several works that were not shown in Paris, for a total of almost two hundred exhibits. The exhibition was so successful that it was decided to extend it by two months: 000 visitors!

The same exhibition, but it should be noted that the approach of the curators of the exhibition in Paris was different from that of the curators of the exhibition in Marseille, and the difference was expressed in the choice of name. The name of the exhibition in Paris: “Baia, Icon of Algerian Painting, Women in Their Gardens”. The name of the exhibition in Marseille: “Baia, Algerian Heroine of Modern Art”.

Cantini Museum He continued his tribute to Baya after a family wishing to remain anonymous lent him some of her works. The museum displayed them along with works it already had in its possession and some it had recently acquired. The sculptures, which were shown for the first time, are wonderful. A total of twenty-eight works were presented in this exhibition. In this link You can see some of the exhibits.

Biographical landmarks

1931-1942: Birth, Orphanage, and Adoption

Fatma Haddad was born in 1931 to poor, loving, rural parents in Paradise Lost, in a town 15 km east of Algiers, then called in French, Fort-de-l'Eau ("Water Fortress") and in Arabic, even earlier, Burj al-Kifan ("Fortress of the Abyss"). In 1937, her father lost his life in an accident. Her mother married a wealthy Kabyle merchant, already married with many children, and took her two children, Fatma (the future Baya) and her younger brother Ali, with her. 

This short period in Tizi Ouzou, Kabylia, where the girl occasionally worked in the fields and herded sheep, had a decisive influence on her art (all of Baya's quotes in the article are from From this file). 

I was inspired, apparently, by Kabyle women who dressed in bright colors. (…). I am both Arab and Kabyle and I lived in Kabyle, in Tizi Ouzou, not for long, admittedly, but I remember well seeing women kneading clay. That is probably why I started doing the same thing, myself, with a great love for the earth and pottery. 

Three years after her father's death, in 1940, her mother died in childbirth. Fatma adopted her mother's name, Baya, which means "magnificent" in Kabyle, and with which she would sign her future works.

My memory of my father is very vague, but my memory of my mother, despite my young age, is quite accurate. I drew her portrait, by the way: tall, thin, with long black hair that reached this far… She was truly charming! I have the impression that the woman I am drawing is somewhat like my mother: I draw her as a musician and so on. I have the feeling that this is my mother and that I was influenced by the fact that I did not know her well, that I was Drenched in her own absence. I don't know...

A few months after her mother's death, the grandmother, the deceased's mother, took the two orphans, Baya and Ali, and brought them to her uncle's poor and cramped house with a dirt floor in Baya's hometown. Baya helped her grandmother who worked on the foreign settlers' farms. At Madame Simone Farges' flower farm, Baya met the patron's sister, a French archivist, librarian, and painter, Marguerite Caminat, who adopted her and encouraged her on her path as an artist.

This was a decisive meeting in Baya’s life, dating back to 1942. Marguerite Kamina had left Toulon with her husband, an English Jewish painter and educator, in love with African art, to escape the Vichy regime and had found temporary refuge on her sister’s flower farm. Simone Farage had brought to Algeria “birds of paradise” flowers (Strelitzia reginae), flowers from South Africa that resemble a bird’s head. When looking at Baya’s works, it is clear that she was inspired by these exotic flowers, whose flowerbeds from Simone’s farm became a leitmotif on paper.

Bird of Paradise, Source: Wikimedia, Public Domain

Marguerite Camina, who lived temporarily at her sister Simone's flower farm, saw Baya finger-drawing in the sand and selling figurines from earth and water whenever she could spare time from the chores assigned to her. Marguerite was amazed and, when she settled into her own apartment, took the girl to her home so that, officially, she could help her with small chores.

1943-1952: First works

Beginning in the fall of 1943, Baya lived in Marguerite and her husband's spacious and pleasant apartment on one of the main streets of Algiers. Paintings by the great French painters hung on the walls, art books and exhibition catalogs were arranged on the shelves, children's drawings and oriental miniatures caught the eye. Intellectuals, writers, and artists were frequent visitors. All this goodness was placed at Baya's disposal, who would shop and clean in the mornings and then enjoy her free time and do as she pleased with it. Marguerite also hired the services of a private tutor to teach her ward how to read and write.

I lived in a house full of flowers: Marguerite’s sister had a flower shop in Algiers. They all loved flowers. Besides the flowers, which were everywhere in the house, there were also other things, beautiful objects. You can imagine the atmosphere I lived in. They always told me: “Come on, do whatever comes to your mind and however you want!” No one, for example, told me what color combinations to make. I discovered things myself.

At home, my mother had paintings by Braque, Matisse. (…). There were birds in the house. I also really like the butterflies of all colors that some of our friends collected.

(…) I started painting because Marguerite painted: she made miniatures and paintings on silk for lampshades. She was married to an English painter, a portraitist. Marguerite painted miniatures with women, flowers, birds. (…). One day, when they were not at home, I took the brushes and began painting enthusiastically. At first I was inspired by children's journals that were sent home. Later, Marguerite put paper, brushes and pencils at my disposal. She would go out to her work and give me a free hand to do as I pleased..

For three years, Baya learned the secrets of gouache and watercolor at Marguerite's house, and every week she would go to the uncle's house where her grandmother lived. In 1947, Marguerite recognized on the girl's body signs of beatings inflicted by the uncle. It is not clear whether the physical violence was also accompanied by sexual violence, although there were strong suspicions that it was. It was urgent to cancel Baya's trips to the drunken and violent uncle's house.

With the consent of Baya's grandmother, Marguerite adopted the orphan and rescued her from her uncle's clutches. Marguerite received permission from the local cadi in charge of orphans to be Baya's guardian until she reached adulthood. The incident of abuse was not reflected in Baya's works.

Marguerite encouraged Baya to do whatever she wanted, to listen to herself in her art. On the other hand, she encouraged her to connect with her Arab-Kabyle culture, and to that end, Baya spent weekends in the homes of traditional Muslim families, friends of Marguerite's.

My adoptive mother insisted that I not lose my religion. At her house, I fasted, I didn't eat pork, I didn't drink, I prayed. In addition, she would send me to traditional, strict Algerian families, where you had to wear a veil. Every weekend I would spend time with one of these families and there I learned to pray and cultivated my language, Arabic. There was Ami El-Haj, who would tell us stories in the evenings. These stories remained in my memory.

Good fortune continued to embrace the young artist when the owner of the famous Parisian gallery Aimé Maeght came to Algiers, was exposed to her works, took a look and was struck. He organized a solo exhibition for her in Paris and thus, in 1947, at the age of 16, Baya gained unprecedented recognition and publicity. André Breton wrote the foreword to the exhibition catalogue, Albert Camus expressed his admiration in a letter to a friend, and the journalist and writer Edmond Charles-Rue published a laudatory article that took up a double page spread in Vogue magazine. 

At the Mag Gallery, in the 8th arrondissement, at 13 rue de Téhéran, the girl walked around without saying much, modest and proud, princess-like, among the astonished visitors, among whom were André Breton, Albert Camus, François Mauriac, Georges Braque, Jean Dubuffet, and Christian Bérard. 

Baya refused to answer questions. Where did the ideas for the paintings and sculptures come from? “I don’t know,” she repeated, not giving up. Later she would say that she was not inspired by Surrealism, but rather the opposite. Indeed, Surrealism was inspired by Baya, and thanks to her, Breton was exposed to some of the secrets of creation. Baya, a child prodigy who began painting at the age of 13 and a painter even earlier, was born with magic in her hands, with an inventiveness that was out of this world. Her subconscious was naturally connected to the ancient myths that blurred the differences between the animal kingdom and the still life. Humans, animals, plants, rocks, everything was perceived as a single unit. It is enough to take a quick look at a video about rock paintings in the Sahara to notice the similarity between the prehistoric works and Baya’s paintings.

The exhibition was a great success. Baya arrived in Paris with Marguerite, who had meanwhile separated from her first husband and married Cady. Marguerite and her second husband participated in the organization and management of the exhibition. In the summer of 1948, Baya returned to France, this time to the pottery town of Vallauris in the south. France With Marguerite and her niece Mireille Farge.

I also sometimes designed sculptures for Marguerite. For the firing process, we would go to her friend who baked bread in a traditional oven. I would put my pottery in it. When I designed a lot of sculptures, I didn't know where to fire them. Marguerite knew the pottery of Madoura very well. Since she had connections in Valouris, she decided that we would go there. 

In Vlorë, Baya made pottery sculptures in a workshop next to Picasso’s. He came to see her work and she came to see him work. Picasso did not influence Baya, contrary to what some claim. The 17-year-old Baya and the 67-year-old Picasso had equal conversations about ceramics. They also enjoyed going out for couscous together at lunchtime… Picasso or not, in one month in Vlorë, Baya sculpted more than fifty works and left them all in place.

In the fall of 1950, Baya returned to France, this time to Paris, stayed with the Mag family, visited museums, and met Braque and his family. When she returned to Algiers, she began to create again in Marguerite's new apartment. It should be noted that despite her great success in the artist circles in Paris, she did not gain recognition, at this stage, in Algiers.

1953-1961: Starting a family and temporarily neglecting art

Baya came of age and the cadi in charge of her transferred her to the city of her birth, which she would never leave again until the day she died. The cadi married her there to an Arab-Andalusian musician, owner of an orchestra, thirty years her senior, as his second wife. The musician was already the father of eight children and Baya would bear him six more. A few years later he divorced his first wife.

When I got married, in 1953, I stopped painting. I didn't start again until 1961. After the wedding it wasn't the same. When I came here, to my husband's house, it was hard to continue it in this environment. And I also had no more contact with the outside world. I was at home, I had to stay at home, so why paint? I didn't have the energy for it anymore.

Baya temporarily abandoned art, but her marriage provided her with a fertile source of inspiration when she took up the paintbrush again. Numerous musical instruments would populate her works, joining flowers, fruits, birds, and female figures.

Baya was not unhappy in her marriage. Quite the opposite. She found a large house with a magnificent garden with orange and lemon trees, hydrangeas, and rose bushes of all colors. She watered her garden, cooked its crops, and made jams from its fruits.

Her dream was not only to be a painter but also to start a family and function as a mother. What she lacked in her childhood, she gave to her children. Baya gave birth to six children, five boys and one girl. Baya found her paradise again, in another version.

Baya was forced to stay at home during the first years of her marriage for gender reasons in a given geographical context, but it should be noted that the years in which she gave birth to her children coincided with the Algerian War of Independence, so there was no possibility of engaging in art anyway. Baya's husband also stopped his musical activities for this reason.

Baya and her husband were two religious Muslim artists who willingly led a traditional lifestyle. They understood each other, made the pilgrimage to Mecca together in 1972, preferred to remain silent on painful political issues, did not take a stand, and closed themselves off in their homes during storms. However, they never imposed their faith on others. On the contrary. For Baya, Islam should carry a message of brotherhood, happiness, and self-fulfillment for every person, regardless of their origin.

Baya recognized Marguerite, the Frenchwoman who was her adoptive mother, and remained in contact with her even after Marguerite left Algiers and returned to France in 1957, until her death in 1989, nine years before Baya's. A correspondence spanning more than twenty years, punctuated by meetings when Baya came to France for her exhibitions.

Baya also acknowledged her gratitude to France and the French for their support of her and her art. She was in contact with French institutions and French artists who organized many exhibitions for her in France, both solo and group exhibitions in which she participated. Baya, on the other hand, found it very important to socialize with Algerian artists, both her own generation and younger ones.

1961-1982: Return to art

Baya returned to her artistic path in 1961 when the National Museum of Fine Arts in Algiers bought some of her works that had returned from the Galerie Mag in Paris. It was a time to glorify talented local artists.

Baya first began working with clay sculptures and a few months later, with the support of Marguerite's niece, Mireille, and her husband, a French painter born in Algeria, she returned to painting, to gouache.

I started painting again in 1961 when the National Museum in Algiers bought some of my old paintings and when good friends, Jean and Mireille Maisoncel, encouraged me. It was Christmas and I remember, they said to me: “Here, we are giving you all the equipment as a gift so that you can work.” It touched me to the depths of my soul. I was in the clouds! This paper, these colors! I started right away, like I was going to explode, I held back for so long. It was great!

I went to talk to my husband and he agreed that I should go back to my work. He was nice and encouraged me to do so. (…). The house was full of musical instruments, everywhere. Living among all these musical instruments inspired me.

In July 1963, an entire hall was dedicated to Bahia's gouaches from 1945 to 1947 in an exhibition that launched the reopening of the Museum of Fine Arts in Algiers. The curator was Mireille's husband, Jean de Maisonseul, who was then the museum's director. He was the one who bought the paintings.

We went to Algiers to see the museum, it was a strange feeling to see my paintings on the walls, I had forgotten all about them, what a pleasure to see them again.

Her joy at seeing her paintings on the museum walls was reinforced when Marguerite, who worked at Galerie Mag, wrote to her that she had managed to sell her works. From then on, Baya's works were frequently exhibited, each time in a different exhibition in Algiers and also in other places such as Lida, Baya's city of residence, Tizi Ouzou, and Annaba.

In 1979, at the age of 76, Baia's husband died and she asked for her life to end. That year, she fell seriously ill. Her passion for life and art grew, however, and she continued her gouache paintings, even in a larger format. She also helped with the expenses of raising her children, whom she supported until the end. The collaboration with Marguerite was expressed again when, in 1980, she rescued 47 ceramic works by Baia from the Madura workshop in Vlorë.

In the 1980s, a shift from colorful colors to a darker palette, steeped in a certain melancholy, can be identified in some of her works. Baya would isolate elements of her works, birds, butterflies, and enlarge them, as if to deepen the spiritual messages behind them. From then on, she would also experiment with new avenues that she continued to draw from the Arab-Kabyle tradition, painting fabrics and painting on furniture.

1983-1998: International recognition

Beginning in the 1930s, Baya, along with seven other Algerian artists, all born around the same year, was classified as one of the “1920 Generation.” These artists came after the pioneers of the XNUMX Generation and are considered the founders of modern Algerian painting.

Baya exhibited in many exhibitions (Algiers, Paris, Oran, Marrakech, Madrid, Brussels, London, Washington…) and the most important of them was in 1982 at the Cantini Museum in Marseille, a solo exhibition organized in her honor by Jean de Maisonselle with the support of Edmond Charles-Roux. The then French President François Mitterrand and his Minister of Culture Jacques Lange as well as Gaston Deffer, Mayor of Marseille, were present at the launch event.

Baya arrived in Marseille from her home in Blida, which had been her anchor of security from her marriage until her death. On this occasion, Baya visited friends in Provence, especially Marguerite, who had left Paris and moved to live near Toulon, near her niece Mireille and her husband, until her death in 1989. 

Less than a year before Baya's death, while already very ill, the artist nevertheless took the trouble to come to Paris for an exhibition of Algerian painters, some of her contemporaries, some younger, in which she participated. During the dark years of the Algerian civil war, Baya refused to leave her home and sheltered in Blida, even though the French ambassador offered her and her family asylum in France. Blida became a scene of bloody attacks, but Baya was imbued with her faith and her family would not be harmed. That was how it was.

Baya passed away in Blida on November 9, 1998, after more than thirty years of creative work in the city, leaving us a precious treasure. From her return to art in 1962 until her death, Baya did not stop creating despite grief and illness.

Baya knew how to continue and renew her creativity until the last moment, and not everything has been said yet about the development of her works, the innovations and changes she introduced into them. A female artist, an Algerian artist, a Muslim artist, a Francophile artist, a modern artist, a pioneering artist, Baya was simply a great artist who loved to discover and create, diligently and diligently, while listening to her deep feelings. Baya was sure of her identity: “I was born an artist. It is a gift that God gave me.”

Lines for its creation

Arab-Kabyle culture

In Tizi Ouzou, the girl watched the Kabyle women who wore colorful dresses and made clay pots. The sculptures she designed, the motifs and colors, such as the red pink, the purple pink and the turquoise blue, are influenced by the sight of her eyes. 

However, Baya did not exactly copy the Kabyle women's clothing for her paintings but rather recreated it in her own way, with butterflies and birds mixed with dots and lines. Baya took creative liberties in listening to her unique voice. The women's stylish clothing is like a painting within a painting.

In her first works, which she called “Women with Amulet” or “Women with Medallion,” the influence of Kabyle jewelry is evident. And also necklaces and earrings, and throughout her work, hairstyles, scarves, and other objects, such as vases, lamps, candlesticks, and kitchen utensils. The inspiration of the Kabyle dolls, which the girls would make from pieces of cloth according to tradition, is also noteworthy.

A special place is reserved for the Kabyle rural folktales that have been passed down from generation to generation, from mothers to children, from storytellers in the evening to the general public. Around the age of fifteen, Baya created a series of illustrations, about twenty in number, that originated from these legends. One of them illustrates the well-known story “The Goat and the Orphans.” The children of a woman on her deathbed received a gift from her – a goat. The stepmother deprived them of food, but they grew up to be magnificent and in good health. They secretly suckled milk from the goat. The stepmother discovered the secret and killed the goat. The orphans went to the mother’s grave and a demon came out of it and fed them every day until the stepmother discovered this too and decided to burn it. This is the motif of all the stories, which celebrate a mother’s love for her children even beyond death against the abuse of the stepmother.

The illustration dedicated to the story “The Goat and the Orphans” can be seen In this link, on page 11 of the file. In the following illustration, which belongs to the series of scenes from the stories, we see a lion that is not threatening because of the calming presence of its mother (most of the photographs of the drawings in this article – from the blog of Jean-Luc Couzy).

Baya, La dame dans sa belle maison, 1947, © Archives nationales d'outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence

The mother is like a queen in heaven.

Fatma signed her works with the name of her mother, Baya, and in each painting she found the dead mother again and connected with her, beyond time, in a fantastic paradise, with lush vegetation. In many paintings, one sees a mother and a baby, as if built into her lap. Time stopped, became mythical, with Baya alive, each painting is recreated as a round, feminine and loving figure, and all of these figures are the deceased mother who has returned to her world. The mother and daughter are united by one name and are recreated in each and every work.

The painting “Mother and Child in Blue” is considered a masterpiece.

Baya, Mère et enfant en bleu, peinture à la gouache, 1947, Col.-Isabelle-Maeght

Baya imitates mourning and bereavement with the help of a colorful, imaginative world full of joy. The women who inhabit her paintings are never in the role of victims. They are all magnificent queens, in poses of power, free and happy in a paradise where pure streams flow. In the painting “Two Women,” a strong brotherhood is expressed between the figures, who hold each other’s hands, with a red plant in the shape of a row of hearts strengthening the connection between them.

Baya, Deux femmes, 1947, Gouache on paper, 63 x 48 cm. Genève et Tunis, Collection Kamel Lazaar Foundation, MABa-Pa-003 © Photo Quentin Crestinu

One painting, “The Mother’s Dream,” however, which is different from the others, and is a reversal of the previous painting, “Two Women,” caught my attention. It is perhaps the only one in which black dominates, against a white, gray, and beige background, rather than the colorful one.

Baya, Le rêve de la mère, une des deux versions, 1947 (© Gabrielle Voinot)

The painting is harmonious, the mother and daughter are similar in their clothing and hair, the motif of their dresses blends into nature, their arms like branches, merging with the branches of the tree that shelters them. However, the black in the mother's dress as well as the black in the hair and eyes of the mother and daughter represents mourning. The connections between the human figures and the vegetation are framed in the overall harmony of the painting, and this compensates somewhat for the gloom, but a careful look will show that the mother and daughter are not touching each other, cannot touch each other. Only longing remains. The gray rock under the daughter's dress adds to the feeling of obstruction. There is no helplessness in the face of death. Only the dream remains.

And this, the dream, is strongly expressed in the joy of life expressed in most of Baya's paintings, where the magnificent landscapes carry us, the viewers, to a mythical, ancient, harmonious paradise, where separateness and individuation become blurred. A woman and a bird are depicted as twins, women ride animals, flying fish, musical instruments resemble birds and turn from still to alive. And everything is arranged in a harmonious composition of colors and shapes, a symphony, a fairy tale. Many animals are hybrid creatures born from a fusion between reality and imagination, such as the gods of ancient Egypt.

The exotic flowers from Simone Farage's flower farm beds and the colorful butterflies she saw in her childhood collections grace her paintings, and some see them as a symbol of the characters' souls or, at any rate, a close symbiosis with them. It is also a spiritual, mystical, universal paradise.

there is People who think my paintings are too cheerful. “Why not sad things?”, they ask me. When I was little, I was always sad. I lost my parents when I was 5. And it doesn’t show in my paintings.

“Why birds?”, I am asked. Well, I love birds. “Why butterflies?”, well, I love butterflies. I don’t bring a subject. I feel it and put it on paper. It makes me happy but I can’t say why my paintings are this way or that. When I paint, I am happy, I am in another world, I forget everything.

They say to me: “Why is it always the same?” Well, if I change, I won’t be in Aya anymore. But deep down, it does change. Still.

Musical Instruments

Baya's marriage introduced into her paintings the new motif of many and varied musical instruments, oud, harp, mandolin, resembling a bird with one eye. This eye also resembles the eye of Baya's women, who are attentive to others and to the nature around them.

Baya, unnamed. Source: Wikimedia Commons, in the public domain

The harmony between the musical instruments, the peacocks, the butterflies, the caterpillars, the fruits is emphasized by the black line that surrounds them, which both separates and connects them. All the figures depicted are similar to each other but also maintain their individual identities. There is nothing like art to express the ambivalence of the universe, external and internal.

The musical instruments become dancing figures. The viewer hears the melodies in his imagination. This painting, “Musical Birds,” belongs to a whole group that does not show real women, but while they disappear, the birds, butterflies, and musical instruments become, themselves, human.

Baya, Les Oiseaux musiciens, 1976, gouache on paper. ALBERTO RICCI

sculptures

Baya sculpted before she painted. Some say that her sculptures paved the way for the transition to paper, while others argue, on the contrary, that Baya was destined to be a great sculptor but missed this destiny due to a lack of material conditions for firing her works in a kiln. This is how one of the curators of the 2023 exhibition dedicated to Baya in Marseille, Claude Lemand, explains in an interview. On Jean-Luc Couzy's blog.

Claude Leman explains in it that the use of the studio in Valouris was a single episode in Baya's life. Baya did not work on her art in France, she worked in Algeria and the Algerian frameworks did not provide her with the necessary conditions for sculpture. Thus, this main aspect of her art that allowed Baya to express the darker sides of life was neglected.

It is true that certain sculptures illustrate the disturbing, monstrous aspect that is not expressed in the paintings, most of which are harmonious and refined. Even the series of illustrations inspired by the Kabyle stories about child predators presents the animals in a non-threatening manner, compared to the sculptures. However, it should be noted and clarified that among Baya's sculptures there are also refined and elegant works, such as the paintings, for example, a mother and a baby nestled in her lap, and so on.

Let's take for example the work "Gray Beast" in which frightening formal distortions dominate. The twisted head, the horns, the spherical eyes, the gaping mouth, the thick claws, hell, not heaven.

Baya, Bête grise, 1947. Terre cuite 40x36x22 cm. Special collection. Photo Gabrielle Voinot

Some present Baya's sculptures and paintings as two poles. The candlestick in the shape of a seated woman, with plants in her hands, a “candlestick woman,” connects to Baya's pictorial world in the design of the plants and the dress. However, the sculpted woman is different from the painted women. She is less regal, less elegant, her legs are thickened and remind me a little of the claws of the gray beast. She is not frightening, her face is beautiful and her hairstyle is impressive, but she is nevertheless different from the women in the paintings.

Baya, Femme candélabre (atelier Madoura), 1948, Terre cuite peinte, H : 33 x L : 28 x D : 29 cm. Private collection.

Photographed by: Gilles

In Aya forever

Sculptures, paintings, silk paintings, furniture paintings, all of Baya's works, in all styles, captivate my heart. I never thought I would fall in love (friendly love, as the French say) with a woman and artist so different from me. Despite the contrasting backgrounds, I feel so close to her.

I also admire the woman who was discreet, modest, did not lose her head despite conquering the world at the age of 16, despite the success that almost always shone on her face. She wisely maintained neutrality and was tolerant and open.

I admire her personality, her gratitude to life for giving her the right to create. Her gratitude to Marguerite, her adoptive mother, her focus on goodness, her transformation of the darkness and all the suffering around her into artistic expression without complaining or making herself a victim. She never got close and never glorified herself, even though she was a victim at the beginning of her life and even though she had every reason to be proud and boastful. Baya is a model for me.

Baya lived in harmony within the rich Arab-Kabyle tradition in which she was born, taking from it what spoke to her heart and giving it a personal and free interpretation. Baya was not a feminist, she was not a rebellious woman, but she stood her ground and followed her artistic path in a world that did not encourage female expression, without harming anyone. Despite the ten years in which she abandoned art, Baya left behind many works.

Her works… her works… I had the privilege of viewing an exhibition that brought them together in one place. Where can I see them? At the Cantini Museum in Marseille, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Algiers, at the library in Algiers, in Arles, in Lausanne, and in various other places around the world: the list of museums is at the end of the article. It is not easy to understand her world outside of a dedicated exhibition because of the dispersion of the works.

An Algerian and universal artist, rooted in tradition and a modern pioneer at the same time, Baya tirelessly painted a colorful and cheerful paradise, surrounded by mountains and dunes, an oasis or an island. Singing birds, dancing fish, peacocks unfolding, female figures in magnificent dresses, all celebrating the joy of life. The darkness was not silenced and found expression, mainly in sculptures, but was not given control. Baya proved herself in her own way.

Baya would get angry when asked to explain her paintings. She would reply that she paints what she feels, without thinking and letting the viewers feel as they wish.

Baya reiterated that she did not borrow from any painter and certainly did not copy. Baya refused to have her works attributed to one school or another, naive art, the surrealist movement, raw art. And rightly so. Baya was neither this, neither this nor that. Baya offered a new perspective, her own. Baya was Baya and would always be Baya.

Here is the virtuous unit, not talented but genius.

List of museums and galleries where works by Baya are displayed:

Fondation Kamel Lazaar (Tunis) 

Galerie Maeght (Paris) 

Réattu Museum (Arles) 

Musée d'art moderne de Lille métropole (LaM, Villeneuve-d'Ascq) 

Cantini Museum (Marseille) 

Musée d'Art Naïf et d'Arts Singuliers (MANAS, Laval)

Collection de l'Art Brut (Lausanne)

Center national des arts plastiques (CNAP, Paris)

Link To the Paris exhibition page

Link To the exhibition page in Marseille

Link To the Cantini Museum website Where some of Baya's works are displayed

For those interested in expansions, Recommended is the biography of Baya by American historian Alice Kaplan, originally in English Or in translation To French.