Le grand zoiseau by Baya
1985
The painter and sculptor Baya Mehieddine, born Fatima Haddad on 12 December 1931 (Bordj el Kiffan), is best remembered as a self-taught artist, and a surrealist, who marked her time (and ours still) with her bold depictions of animals and women in gouache. But little do we know her as a writer (see below).
Baya's first exhibition was held when she was very young, sixteen years of age, in November 1947 at the Galerie Maeght in Paris. To publicise and celebrate the event, a leaflet in eight-sheets was produced, and it so happened that I found a hard copy (!). It is available here as a PDF.
The leaflet is a true gem: it contains six lithographies by Baya, and rarer still, there is a short story by her called 'Le Grand Zoiseau' (difficult to translate, it means 'the big bird' but it is written phonetically in the way children pronounce 'bird' in French and mistake the singular for the plural). The title is known but as one of her paintings, not as a story.
The story 'Le Grand Zoiseau' is striking not only for its clear roots in Kabyle (Berber) myths but also because it jumbles the order of words. I encountered this very voice in Aziz Chouaki's first novel titled 'Baya, rhapsodie algeroise' (2019). Now I understand his reference and inspiration.
Baya exhibited at Maeght through a series of what are for us 'fortunate events'. Baya had lost both her parents young and was brought up by her grand-mother who worked on the farm of a French coloniser in Algeria. It is said that the farm owner's sister, the painter Marguerite Caminat Benhoura, upon seeing Baya modelling animals in the mud, decides to take her to her home in Algiers. Baya goes to work for her as a house servant, she was 11 years old. Once there, Marguerite encourages Baya to paint and sculpt, and provides her with all the necessary equipment. Marguerite was also well connected in the art world and it so happened that in 1947 one such contact came to Algiers in search of artwork: it was the French art dealer Aime Maeght, owner of the Parisian gallery Maeght. Impressed by her style, an exhibition is organised in his gallery.
By all accounts, Baya remained active until 1953 when she 'returned' to her tutor (I do not know what this means and someone out there might elucidate us) and came back to Algeria where she was married as a second wife to the musician El Hadj Mahfoud Mahieddine. She bore him six children and paused her activities for 10 years.
Luckily for us, Baya resumed her work after independence in 1963, in an exhibition of Algerian painters held to celebrate the 1st November (that leaflet was prefaced by Jean Senac and I've yet to get a hold of it). Baya did not stop painting and exhibiting until she passed away on 9 November 1998 in Blida.
Attirhem rebbi. Rest in Peace.
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