Mohamed Melehi Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Mohamed Melehi (1936 - 2020) was a painter, graphic designer, teacher, muralist and cultural activist of Moroccan origin. He is a fundamental and prominent figure in postcolonial Moroccan art and in the history of transnational modernism. Read the full biography

Mohamed Melehi (1936 - 2020) was a painter, graphic designer, teacher, muralist and cultural activist of Moroccan origin. He is a fundamental and prominent figure in postcolonial Moroccan art and in the history of transnational modernism. In his paintings we perceive the spirit of the aesthetic revolution and the euphoria of post-independence Morocco. He is a leading figure in Arab abstract art and one of the original founders of the Casablanca Art School (along with Farid Belkahia and Mohamed Chabaa), an avant-garde group that radically questioned cosmopolitan abstraction and the pedagogy of art within the context of colonial powers and influences. His work resists the divide between East and West, creating a dialogue between traditional and folk Moroccan craftsmanship, while also connecting to the Hard Edge painters of the 1960s. After 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 Afro-Arab artist to exhibit his works in the avant-garde gallery Topazia Alliata, which would later recommend him to minds of museums like Lawrence Alloway. Melehi's journey into 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 Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) 1963 Hard Edge and Geometric Painting ). He returned to Morocco in 1964 when Farid Belkahia appointed him professor to teach painting, sculpture, collage and photography at the Casablanca School of Art.