Mohamed Melehi 1936-2020

Overview

Moucharabieh, Grey on Black, 2020

Mohamed Melehi (1936–2020) was a leading figure in Arab abstract art and one of the founders of the Casablanca Art School, together with Farid Belkahia and Mohamed Chabâa, an avant-garde group that questioned cosmopolitan abstraction and art pedagogy within the context of colonial influence. His work resists the East/West divide, creating a dialogue between Moroccan traditional and popular craft while also connecting to the Hard Edge painters of the 1960s. Following his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in Tétouan, he continued his education in Seville, Madrid, Rome and Paris, and later studied at Columbia University in New York. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at MACAAL, Marrakech; the Mosaic Rooms, London; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; and Tate St Ives, and is held in major collections including Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the British Museum, London; and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha.

His work resists the East/West divide resulting in a dialogue between Moroccan traditional and popular craft, whilst also connecting to the Hard Edge painters of the 1960s.

Following his primary studies in Tetouan, Melehi studied from 1955 in Seville and Madrid, and from 1957 in Rome where he would also become the first African-Arab artist to exhibit his work in the avant-garde gallery Topazia Alliata, which would later recommend him to museum minds such as Lawrence Alloway. Melehi’s journey in transnational abstraction earned him an assistant professor position at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 1962. He then moved to New York and was included in the 1963 Hard Edge and Geometric Painting of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). He returned to Morocco in 1964 when Farid Belkahia appointed him as a professor to teach painting, sculpture, collage and photography at the Casablanca Art School. He joined the core group of artists—Ataallah, Belkahia, Chabâa, Hafid and Hamidi—to set up the most radical postcolonial arts platform with the inauguration of the street/manifesto exhibition Présence Plastique in 1969. Melehi co-founded the journal Integral (1971–1978) and the Asilah Arts Festival.

A painter, graphic designer, teacher, muralist, and cultural activist, Melehi is a pivotal and leading figure for postcolonial Moroccan art and within the history of transnational modernism. In his paintings we sense the spirit of aesthetic revolution and the exhilaration of post-Independence Morocco.

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Works

Sky Above Manhattan, 1963
The Blacks, 1963
Untitled, 1970
Untitled, 1970
Soleil Oblique, 1971
Untitled, 1975
Untitled, 1975
Vertical Flood One, 2019
Moucharabieh, Grey on Black, 2020
Moucharabieh in the Night, 2020
Moucharabieh in Green and Blue, 2020

Biography

Mohamed Melehi at the street exhibition in Jemaa-el-Fnaa square, Marrakech, in 1969. Photograph: Chabâa family archives

Mohamed Melehi was born in Assilah, Morocco, in 1936 and graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts, Tétouan, in 1955. He continued his studies abroad, learning fine art in Seville and Madrid, sculpture in Rome and engraving in Paris. In the early 1960s he travelled to the United States, where he studied at Columbia University on a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship before returning to Morocco in 1964. During this period, he began to explore his cultural heritage as a primary source of inspiration and developed the bold colour palette and formal language that became central to his work.

From 1964 to 1969, Melehi was Professor of Painting, Sculpture and Photography at the Casablanca School of Fine Arts, where he worked alongside Belkahia and Chabâa to develop one of the most radical postcolonial art platforms in the region. In 1969 he organised the open-air exhibition in Jemaa el-Fna Square, Marrakesh, which marked a turning point in Moroccan contemporary art. He later co-founded the journal Integral (1971–1978) and, together with Mohamed Benaissa, created the Al Mouhit Cultural Association, which led to the establishment of the Asilah Cultural Moussem, an annual festival known for its mural painting programme that transformed the artist’s hometown.

He held numerous solo exhibitions including: Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2025); National Gallery of Fine Arts, The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman Jordan (2021); Alserkal Art Avenue (2021); Cromwell Place with Lawrie Shabibi, London (2020); Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), Marrakech (2019); the Mosaic Rooms, London (2019); Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris (1995); and the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (1984), and participated in group exhibitions in Casablanca, Tangiers, Rabat, Marrakech, Baghdad, Algiers, Dubai, London, Paris, Rome, Zurich, New York, Chicago and Montreal. His work has also been included in recent exhibitions such as Form and Rhythm, Sotheby’s Dubai (2025), and the Casablanca Art School exhibition at Tate St Ives (2023–2024).

His work is held in major international collections including Tate, London; the British Museum, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; and the Dalloul Art Foundation, Beirut.

Melehi passed away in Paris in October 2020.

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Exhibitions