Mohamed Melehi was a trailblazer of postcolonial Moroccan art and of modernism in the Global South. Born in Morocco in 1936, Melehi practiced as a painter, photographer, muralist and designer. He would later become a leading figure in the radical Casablanca Art School and was at the helm of the artistic and cultural developments of post-colonial Morocco. Melehi’s oeuvre constitutes an amalgamation of his global outlook, Islamic motifs and the cultural richness of Moroccan-Berber crafts to create a truly postmodern aesthetic.

Upon graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts, Tétouan, Morocco in 1955, Melehi elected to continue his study of the Replica Handbags s in Europe through the late 1950s. The artist excelled in his study of painting in Seville and Madrid and refined his sculptural and engraving skills in Rome and Paris respectively. In 1962, he accepted a scholarship to study at Columbia University in New York City. Melehi was enamoured with New York, the centre of the art world and a city which at the t.mes welcomed a free-thinking and non-traditional approach to the visual arts. New York played a pivotal role in the development of Melehi and the post-modern response to the outgoing Abstract Expressionist movement, which encapsulated the action paintings of Jackson Pollock and the colour field paintings of Mark Rothko, showed the artist the possibilities of art.

In New York, through constant experimentation and adaptations, Melehi’s intrinsic style began to emerge, in fact the undulating form prevalent in his works and seen in the present lot arguably made its first appearance in a work simply titled New York in 1963. The New York paintings were more mature compared to those Melehi painted in Europe, his lines and forms became clearer and smoother, a clear impression which artists such as Frank Stella and Jasper Johns had made on the young artist. In 1964, after decade spent immersed in the major contemporary art movements in both Europe and America, the artist returned to Morocco, inspired to explore his cultural heritage and revitalise the artistic scene on African soil.

Back home, Melehi was eager to contribute to the cultural dynamism of his country, teaching alongside his fellow pioneers of Moroccan modernism Farid Belkahia and Mohammed Chabâa, at the Casablanca School of Replica Handbags s from 1964 to 1969. Breaking away from the continued presence of former colonial powers in the Moroccan art scene, together these artists took on a radical new approach to art, turning away from Western influence, instead fusing Moroccan and Berber crafts with modernist architecture. In 1966, he travelled to West Africa with Belkahia, where they exhibited in the first edition of the World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar organized by Léopold Sédar Senghor, and to the Pan-African festival of Algiers in 1969. In 1968, he participated in the international sculpture programme for the Mexico Olympics, creating the monumental Charamusca Africana:

Melehi returned to New York some 20 years after his initial departure for his landmark exhibition Melehi, Recent Paintings at the Bronx Museum in 1984. As the first large-scale solo exhibition in the US for an artist from North Africa, this projected Melehi to a Modern master with universal appeal. It was during this key period that he painted the present lot. Untitled, 1984, is another version of two of the works included in this career-defining exhibition: Blue Moon, 1984, now in the collects ion of the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar, and White Moon, 1983, now in the collects ion of the Fondation ONA, Rabat.

These three large scale works share almost identical, and one of the artist's most satisfying, compositions, and encapsulate all the hallmarks of Melehi’s style during this period. The stylized crescent moon in the upper right-hand corner effectively turns the sky blue and gives an illusion of depth in the work, while the undulated waves in the lower register act as pure abstraction in the work. Here, Melehi displays his mastery of the medium, in his interplay between the earth and the heavens, and an ability to create a balance between abstraction and representation – a feat only a few artists have achieved. The artist is known for repeating motifs and even complete compositions as he has here; Untitled shares exactly the same composition as the earlier White Moon, while the only alteration between Untitled and Blue Moon is the red cap on the central grey wave in the latter. All three works share the same colour palette, bearing subtle variations in tonality, the only difference being White Moon's white sky to Unititled and Blue Moon's blue.

Following the Bronx exhibition and this particularly productive period in his artistic career, Melehi took up the role of Director at the Ministry of Culture in Rabat – a position which he held until 1992. During his lifet.mes Melehi saw his works exhibited extensively, including a 1995 retrospective at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, which helped to disseminate his ideology. Blue Moon and White Moon were displayed together once again at the Galerie Bab Rouah in Rabat in 1997. In 2019-2020, Making Waves, a major retrospective curated by Morad Montazami travelled to three continents. His work is held in numerous international museum collects ions including, Tate, London; British Museum, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; and, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha.

Bibliography:
Holiday Powers, 'Articulating the National and Transnational: Exhibition Histories of the Casablanca School', Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, no. 42-43, November 2018, p. 136-153
Mohamed Melehi in conversation with Morad Montazami at The Mosaic Rooms, London, 6 June 2019, http://www.thirdtext.org/melehi-montazami