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Lot Essay
Mohamed Melehi was a pioneering Moroccan artist whose work helped shape the country’s modern art movement. Born in 1936 in the coastal town of Asilah, he developed an early passion for art and pursued formal studies in Seville, Madrid, and later Rome, where he became the first African-Arab artist to exhibit at the avant-garde Topazia Alliata gallery. His explorations of abstraction earned him a teaching position at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 1962 and led to further study at Columbia University in New York under a Rockefeller scholarship, where he participated in the influential Hard Edge and Geometric Painting and Sculpture exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1963.
Returning to Morocco in 1964, Melehi joined the Casablanca School of Fine Arts as a professor and, alongside artists such as Farid Belkahia and Mohammed Chabâa, helped establish a postcolonial artistic platform, culminating in the groundbreaking Présence Plastique street exhibition of 1969. Drawing inspiration from Moroccan crafts, Amazigh textiles, and Islamic art, he developed a vibrant visual language of geometric forms and dynamic waves, reflecting both his hometown and the philosophical rhythms of life.
Painted in 2007, Composition exemplifies Melehi’s mastery of colour and form, featuring sharp diagonals emerging from either side of the canvas in white and vibrant blues, within which his iconic waves in tonal variations of yellow and grey flow. Softer, organic geometric forms in ochre and white converge towards the centre, creating a dialogue between fluidity and structure. These overlapping shapes contrast yet coexist harmoniously, while brilliant red punctuates the composition, enhancing its visual impact. The work demonstrates Melehi’s ability to balance symmetry and asymmetry, warm and cool tones, and geometric precision with organic movement, resulting in a composition that is both vibrant and melodious.
Mohamed Melehi’s works are held in major international collections, including Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Musée d’Art Contemporain Africain–Al Maaden (MACAAL), and Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2017, Melehi was honoured with a retrospective at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha and more recently his work was featured in The Casablanca Art School exhibition, which travelled from Tate St Ives to the Sharjah Art Foundation in 2023–2024.
Returning to Morocco in 1964, Melehi joined the Casablanca School of Fine Arts as a professor and, alongside artists such as Farid Belkahia and Mohammed Chabâa, helped establish a postcolonial artistic platform, culminating in the groundbreaking Présence Plastique street exhibition of 1969. Drawing inspiration from Moroccan crafts, Amazigh textiles, and Islamic art, he developed a vibrant visual language of geometric forms and dynamic waves, reflecting both his hometown and the philosophical rhythms of life.
Painted in 2007, Composition exemplifies Melehi’s mastery of colour and form, featuring sharp diagonals emerging from either side of the canvas in white and vibrant blues, within which his iconic waves in tonal variations of yellow and grey flow. Softer, organic geometric forms in ochre and white converge towards the centre, creating a dialogue between fluidity and structure. These overlapping shapes contrast yet coexist harmoniously, while brilliant red punctuates the composition, enhancing its visual impact. The work demonstrates Melehi’s ability to balance symmetry and asymmetry, warm and cool tones, and geometric precision with organic movement, resulting in a composition that is both vibrant and melodious.
Mohamed Melehi’s works are held in major international collections, including Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Musée d’Art Contemporain Africain–Al Maaden (MACAAL), and Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2017, Melehi was honoured with a retrospective at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha and more recently his work was featured in The Casablanca Art School exhibition, which travelled from Tate St Ives to the Sharjah Art Foundation in 2023–2024.