Painter
Mahjoubi Aherdane
“I paint to free myself; painting is, for me, the search for balance.” A leading figure of Moroccan public life, Mahjoubi Aherdane was also, for more than seventy years, a painter and poet with a blazing imagination.
The artist
Career
Born in 1921 in Oulmès, in the Middle Atlas, Mahjoubi Aherdane discovered painting in Nice in 1947, through a chance friendship with the brother of a painter. A soldier and then a statesman, co-founder of the Mouvement populaire in 1957 and several times a minister, he never stopped painting or writing, and devoted himself to art, poetry and Amazigh culture once he stepped back from politics. He died in his native Oulmès on 15 November 2020, at the age of 99.
A flamboyant dream world
His painting belongs to a dreamlike vein close to Surrealism, of haunting complexity: ambiguous forms suggesting horses, eyes, leaves and majestic flowers, intertwined in reds, greens and yellows; strange subjects, disembodied shadows, restrained light. An “intoxication with pure colour” fed by the Amazigh imagination he defended all his life.
Landmarks
- 1947 — Discovers painting in Nice
- 1957 — Co-founds the Mouvement populaire
- Exhibitions in Versailles and London
- 1991 — “Un poème pour étendard”, L’Harmattan
- Memoirs published by Éditions du Regard
- 2020 — Dies in Oulmès, at 99
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In the same spirit
Discover works by Abdelkarim El Azhar, Mohamed Benmoussa and Saïd Lahssini, or browse all Moroccan paintings for sale.
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