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Farid Belkahia | Moroccan 1934-2014



Farid Belkahia was born in Marrakech in Morocco in 1934.

He came from a rich, Francophone, Francophile, family.M'Hamed Belkahia, his father was a civil service employee in Civil Control under the French protectorate.He also belonged to the Western intellectual and artistic circles that were established in the country. This included figures such as the French artist Nicolas de Stael, (1914-19955).

Belkahia became familiar with the art world at a young age, and his interest in the subject was so great that, by the time he reached the age 15 he had produced oil portraits on canvas with an expressionist style. He attended Olek Telzer's atelier in 1950 with the Moroccan painter Moulay Ahmed DRISSI (1924-1973). His father, however, refused to allow his son to follow an artistic career and instead wanted him to go into agricultural engineering.

In 1953, his father sent him to Ourzazate where he taught between 1953 and 54. He moved to France in 1955 and enrolled at the Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts, in Paris. However, he couldn't adhere to the strict academic teaching provided by this establishment. In 1955, he moved to France and enrolled in the Atelier du Peintre Raymond Legueult (1918-1971) who gave him greater freedom of expression. Parallel to this, the student also felt a sense of reconnection with his history and roots. He visited Egypt, Baghdad and Jerusalem and learned about the pre-Islamic and Arab cultures.

He decided later to experience communist life and deepen his knowledge of cinema, which he had developed while he lived in Paris. He studied scenography in Prague at the Prague Theatre Academy. He returned to Morocco in 1962 and was named head of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Casablanca by Mahjoub Binseddik (1922-2010), general secretary of Moroccan Workers' Union.




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