Le grand vernissage de Baya

Alice Kaplan traces the extraordinary journey of the woman who simply signed herself “Baya”, this teenager who, destined for the role of “maid of all work” in colonial Algeria, would be propelled to the rank of celebrity. Baya was not yet 16 years old when she went to Paris for her first exhibition at the Galerie Maeght, on November 21, 1947. France had on its conscience the massacres of May 8, 1945, and the status of Algeria was beginning to divide its National Assembly. In the troubled atmosphere of the time, surrounded by the greatest intellectuals and artists, she was supposed to represent the hope of a “Franco-Muslim friendship.” Christian “Bébé” Bérard, a man of the world, painter, and scenographer, would have fallen to his knees in front of her gouaches: “I who bang my head to find color relationships, there you have it, this little girl invents them without thinking!”

In French.