Farid Belkahia, Untitled, 1982. Dye on leather, mounted on wood, 84×80 cm. Giglio Collection.

Farid Belkahia was born in 1934 in Marrakech, in a Morocco still under the French protectorate.

Since the beginning, his artistic trajectory has been distinguished by a constant tension between international openness and deep cultural roots.

Belkahia is one of the central figures of Moroccan modern and contemporary art, not only for his work, but also for the fundamental role he played in redefining the country’s artistic identity in the second half of the twentieth century.

After initial training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he continued his studies in Prague, where he came into contact with European modern art and abstract research. This international experience profoundly influenced his artistic language, but upon returning to Morocco in the late 1950s, Belkahia made a decisive choice: to reject the imitation of Western models and instead build an autonomous artistic modernity, grounded in the traditions, symbols, and materials of Moroccan culture.

In the 1960s, he became director of the École des Beaux-Arts in Casablanca, transforming it into a laboratory for experimentation and critical thought. Around him, the nucleus of what would become known as the Casablanca School formed, a movement promoting a contemporary art capable of engaging in dialogue with craftsmanship, calligraphy, Amazigh signs, and the visual heritage of the Arab-Islamic world.
In this context, Belkahia plays an intellectual role, encouraging reflection on art as a tool for cultural and political emancipation in post-independence Morocco.

Beginning in the mid-1960s, his artistic practice underwent a radical shift. He abandoned painting on canvas to work on natural materials such as copper, leather, and plant pigments. In particular, tanned leather became the preferred medium for his works: a choice charged with symbolic and cultural significance, harking back to Moroccan artisanal traditions and the ancestral relationship between body, matter, and sign. Surfaces are no longer simple supports, but living elements, traversed by time and manual skill.

Belkahia’s visual language is abstract and symbolic. His works are populated by essential forms, archaic signs, and allusions to the human body, fertility, spirituality, and the primal forces of nature. This is not a cold geometric abstraction, but a sensitive visual writing, in which each sign seems to evoke a collective memory. The color, obtained from natural pigments such as henna, saffron, and indigo, strengthens the connection with the earth and life cycles.

Although deeply rooted in the Moroccan context, Belkahia’s work engages with major issues in international contemporary art: the relationship between tradition and modernity, identity and universality, individual gesture and collective heritage. His works are exhibited in major international exhibitions and collections, contributing to the greater visibility of African and Arab art on the global scene.

Farid Belkahia died in 2014, leaving a fundamental legacy. His research opened new paths for generations of artists, demonstrating that modernity is not a model to be imported, but a process to be built from within. His work continues to speak through materials, signs, and symbols that unite past and present, body and spirit, local and universal, making him a key figure in the history of contemporary African art.

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