Moroccan modern painter Mohammed Hamidi died in 84

Moroccan modern painter Mohamed Hamidi was 84 years old, according to data from the Barjeel Art Foundation on Sharjah’s Instagram page. No information about the cause or survivor was provided.
Hamidi is the founding father of Moroccan modern art. She was born in Casablanca in 1941 and attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Casablanca before moving to Paris in 1959.
Hamidi returned to Morocco in 1967, after Morocco’s independence from the French rule in 1956, with the subsequent cultural Renaissance focused on the particularity of Moroccan culture. In 1969, he participated in the groundbreaking exhibition “Manifesto” of Jamaa El Fna Square in Marrakech with artists Farid Belkahia, Mohamed Chabaa and Mohamed Melehi, who began remakes from 1964, which he began to “reshape” the courses at Casablanca School.
From fine art to graphic design, Hamidi himself taught the forefront of a new country from 1967 to 1975, fostered a new generation of socially involved and forward-thinking Moroccan artists, using experimental methods including the study of traditional art.
In 1967, responding to a questionnaire from a Moroccan magazine Crispy eggsS, he wrote: “Indeed, we must fight against prejudice, which has an effect on the entire Third World, which insists that only the expression of the original man can be seen in the art of the Third World.”
Hamidi, who was on par with this belief, established the Moroccan Plastic Art Association in 1972, cementing the relationship between Moroccan artists and other Arab artists of the time, and through conferences in Baghdad, Tunisia and Algiers.
Although Hamidi’s work focuses on the body, his paintings are largely abstract: combining the characteristics of the artwork of Casablanca, inspired by traditional Maghreb crafts and intersecting in geometric shapes of warm, solid colors that do not depict human form, but suggests – if anyone is looking for it, it is a unique ertoticism.
Hamidi’s work reflects an increased interest in postcolonial African and Middle Eastern art, as well as the work of his colleagues at the Casablanca School, has attracted attention in recent decades, with two of his paintings being acquired by the Pompidou Centre in 2019.