Baya (artist)

Baya Mahieddine (باية محي الدين) or Fatima Haddad (فاطمة حداد, born in Bordj El Kiffan on 12 December 1931; died 9 November 1998)  was an Algerian artist. While she did not identify her work as belonging to a particular art genre, critics have classified her paintings as surrealist, primitive, naïve, and modern. She was an entirely self-taught artist, working both as a painter and, to a lesser extent, in pottery.

At the age of sixteen Baya had her first exhibition, in Paris, where she gained notice from renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso and André Breton. Her work was presented in various exhibitions in France and Algeria, and has appeared on Algerian postage stamps.

Life and career
Born in 1931 in Fort de l’eau (today's Bordj El Kiffan), she was orphaned by the age of five and was raised by her grandmother. When Bay a was eleven, Marguerite Caminat, a French woman residing in Algiers, stepped in as her protector, though the relationship is subject to disptue, with some sources stating that Baya was responsible for completing household duties for Caminat, much like a servant. Caminat furnished her with a residence, art supplies, and words of support for her art. In 1947, Caminat, who was well connected in the literary and art worlds, was visited by a French art dealer, Aimé Maeght, who, later that year, presented Baya's work in a solo exhibition in his gallery. André Breton wrote the preface to the catalogue of that exhibition. After her time in Paris, Baya livedin Vallauris, where she worked on pottery and met Picasso, who was highly impressed by her work. Baya returned to Algeria, and in 1953 she married El Hadj Mahfoud Mahieddine, a famous musician, in an arranged marriage. She did not paint from 1953 to 1963, which coincides with the Algerian War. During these years she gave birth and was mothering six children. In 1963 she resumed painting, exhibiting both new and old work in Algiers and in Paris, until her death on 9 November 1998.

Work
In her gouaches, dominated by vibrant colors, Baya often painted silhouettes of women and their clothes, belts and veils, figures of the enigmatic mother and different domestic objects. The objects surrounding these ladies are devoid of any shadow.

Baya's artworks largely appear to reenact a vibrant and joyful community of women.

The vibrant colors and sinuous contours of the figures in her gouaches offer unique representations of flora and fauna, and portray unusual animals such as flying rabbits and camel-sized birds of a sort that might emerge from Scheherazade's stories from "The Thousand and One Nights".

Reviews
The bold colors and strange figures of her works revealed surrealist and dream-like qualities, which inspired artists such as Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. André Breton defined her work as Surrealism, and this view was widely held for a long time.

Breton's enthusiastic reception of and encomium to Baya and her work is expressed in his 1947 essay "Baya":

"I speak not as others have, to deplore an ending, but rather to promote a beginning, and at this beginning, Baya is queen. The beginning of an age of emancipation and of agreement, in radical rupture with the preceding era, one of whose principal levers for man might be the systematic, always increasing impregnation of nature. The beginnings of this age lie with Charles Fourier, the new impetus has just been furnished by Malcolm of Chazal. But for the rocket that launches the new age, I propose the name Baya. Baya, whose mission is to reinvigorate the meaning of those beautiful nostalgic words: happy Arabia. Baya holds and rekindles the golden bough."

Tribute
In 2018, a Google Doodle was created to celebrate her 87th birthday.