Biography
Artist’s social and cultural background
Brahim Dhahak was the eldest of three children. His early childhood was spent at the family-run Sufi shrine of Sidi ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Jawād in the town of El Ksar in the Gafsa Governorate, where he learned the Qurʾan under his father's guidance and attended the madrasa adjacent to the shrine. Dhahak's paternal line claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad and belong to the Akremi tribe, historically known for a nomadic way of life and for their expertise in raising and trading camels: the family of his mother's side likewise claims descent from the Prophet Muhammad. He was raised among women weavers, including his mother, grandmother, and aunts, who kept looms in the family home in order to pursue this craft. At a young age, Dhahak lost his mother, who died in childbirth, and his father passed away not long after. In 1957, Dhahak married his cousin, and their daughter Nabila Dhahak was born in 1963. Dhahak divorced in 1963 and never remarried.
Artist’s educational and artistic career
After being orphaned, Dhahak attended the Franco-Arab School in Gafsa. From an early age, he showed a talent for drawing, and the school's headmaster encouraged him to pursue his artistic interests. He enrolled at the Lycée Technique in Sfax for secondary school. However, he showed little interest in academic study, devoting most of his time to drawing. He was eventually expelled from the school and shortly thereafter, around 1947 or ’48, moved to Tunis. In Tunis he first worked as a waiter and later found employment in the household of a French diplomat, eventually becoming maître d'hôtel (front of house), a position he would hold for several years while working for different employers.
Dhahak enrolled in drawing classes with Hatem El Mekki (1918–2003) with the income from his employment, and through these classes he met artists associated with the École de Tunis. Formed in the mid to late 1940s, the École de Tunis brought together Tunisian, French, and Italian artists—the majority of whom were trained as painters—who constituted the first organized group of Tunisian modernist artists, and who, with the end of the Protectorate in 1956, became central in developing nationalist aesthetic discourses and practices. Dhahak developed friendships with members of the group, such as Pierre Boucherle (1894–1988), and exhibited for the first time with the École de Tunis as an invited artist in March 1956, a month after making his exhibition debut, presenting two works at the 22nd Exposition artistique de l'Afrique du Nord in Bordeaux (January, February). He participated in the Salon d'Été de La Goulette in July of the same year. It was there that he met the Italian consul to Tunisia, who purchased one of his paintings and encouraged him to pursue formal artistic training at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma in Rome, Italy. Together with Hatem El Mekki, the Italian consul helped Dhahak secure a scholarship, and he departed for Rome in 1957.
During his time at Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, Dhahak undertook in-depth study of approximately a dozen canonical artists from the Western classical tradition. Modern art was also part of the curriculum through studio practice. In addition to this, Dhahak also studied mosaic-making and ceramics. Under the guidance of Mino Maccari (1898–1989), he learned a broad range of printmaking techniques, including etching, intaglio engraving, burin engraving, aquatint, mezzotint, and linocut. He also received instruction in multi-colour reduction woodcut technique from a Thai artist, most likely Pongdam Prayat (1934–2014), who was completing a diploma at the Accademia in the same period as Dhahak and was well-versed in the medium.
Dhahak graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma in 1961 and, returning to Tunisia, taught drawing at a school in Sfax between 1961 and 1964. In 1964, he returned to full-time artistic practice, dedicating himself primarily to printmaking. In 1965, he began work on his first print portfolio, devoted entirely to camels – a project he would complete only in 1997.
In 1968, Dhahak held a solo exhibition at the Café des Nattes in Sidi Bou Saïd, followed by another solo exhibition in 1969 at Galerie Coray in Zurich. A larger survey exhibition of his work was presented at the Galerie du Ministère des Affaires Culturelles et de l'Information in Tunis in March 1971, followed by another exhibition in May 1972 at Hôtel Hilton in the same city. These exhibitions marked a turning point in his career, as collectors began acquiring his work in significant numbers.
In 1971, Dhahak published Nun sprechen die Kamele, an artist's book issued by Claassen Verlag (Hamburg/Düsseldorf). Conceived as an artistic dialogue with the German woodcut artist HAP Grieshaber (1909–1981), the volume features linocuts printed in black, red, and green, including 32 by Grieshaber and 26 by Dhahak.
Dhahak undertook a year-long artist residency at the Cité des Arts in Paris beginning in 1972. During his time in Paris he produced his first print portfolio, La Geste Hilalienne, comprising thirty-three woodcuts inspired by the epic of the Banū Hilāl, which recounts their migration from Yemen into North Africa. The portfolio was completed and exhibited in Paris in 1973.
In 1976, Dhahak completed Oiseaux de la Tunisie et de Méditerranée, a portfolio of 32 woodcuts depicting birds of Tunisia and the Mediterranean. Between 1987 and 1990, he worked on his third portfolio, Poissons de Tunisie, devoted to the fish of Tunisia. He completed a portfolio on horses, Le Cheval: Mythe et Tradition, in 1993, followed by Vaisseau du Désert, the aforementioned portfolio on camels, in 1997. Alongside his woodcuts, Dhahak continued to work in oil painting, acrylic, and watercolour, and also produced mosaics.
Between 1978 and the early 1980s, Dhahak lived in Hammamet, where he ran an art gallery.
