The pioneering Malian photographer Malick Sidibe, has died aged 80. He is known for his black and white studio portraits that captured the lives of young Malians in the 1960s and 1970s.

• Critics say his photos of Mali’s post-colonial period helped people see the West African nation in a new light.
• In 2007, he became the first African winner of the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Biennale.
• Sidibe has work in several private and public museums around the world.
• He became famous around the world after holding his first exhibition in France in 1996.
• He was also honoured with a Hasselblad Award, a lifetime achievement award from the International Center of Photography and a World Press Photo prize.
• His images have since been exhibited around the world, including at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as the Barbican Art Gallery in London and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

Sidibé was born in either 1935 or 1936 (he’s not quite sure), and raised as a “peasant child” 300km from the Malian capital of Bamako. He then won a place the city’s École des Artisans Soudanais, later called the National Institute of Arts. He began his career as a painter, before starting work in the studio of leading society photographer Gérard Guillat.