Biography
If not the very first, Mohammed Ben Ali Rbati is undoubtedly one of the earliest Moroccan painters. He is often referred to as an easel painter, though he eschewed canvas for watercolours on paper. Much of the history of modern painting in Morocco began with Rbati. Little has been written about him, and much of the information is contextual. He received early support from European artists in Tangier, where he was based for most of his life. Many European painters came through Morocco, and especially Tangier, in the 19th and early 20th-centuries. At the time, Tangier was a city conducive to international encounters. In 1903, Rbati became the cook for Sir John Lavery, a portrait painter from Ireland. Lavery realised that Rbati was a talented painter who practised watercolour painting with care and attention to detail and encouraged his professional practice. This support was instrumental for Rbati’s career. Rbati moved to Marseille in 1916, where he worked in the sugar factory and exhibited work in 1919, then returned to Tangier in 1922. Upon his return, the Director of Fine Arts, Prosper Ricard, organised a solo exhibition of his work at the Mamounia Palace in Rabat. He was obliged to enrol in the Moroccan Tabors of the Spanish army as a firefighter in 1925. He left the military in 1929 and became a night guard at the Bank of Bilbao, at which point he began to sell paintings in souvenir shops. In 1933, he was given a studio at the palace in Tangier and sold work, including to the sultan Moulay Abdelaziz, and opened his restaurant. He died from unknown causes in 1939.
Rbati had his first exhibition at the Goupil Gallery in London in 1916, an exhibition which is believed to be the first solo exhibition for a Moroccan modernist artist. Although Rbati had no formal art training, his exposure to painting and the availability of watercolours in Tangier, thanks to the sizeable British population, awakened within him a desire to paint the daily scenes he was surrounded by. Rbati consistently signed the front of his canvases, always in Arabic.
Rbati's figurative watercolours on paper focus on Tangier, its Kasbah, and its inhabitants. The paintings depict an extensive cross-section of the local population, showing men gathered around musicians or snake charmers, halqas (storytelling circles) in the Kasbah, and people walking through the streets, as well as scenes in cafes, at festivals, and in lavish interiors. Precise strokes often simplify and demarcate the figures, while well-placed lines suggest the folds of djellabas, highlighting the brightness of the multiple colours. Many of his watercolours feature large groups of men or women, and the focus is often more on the larger scene than on individualising details. The geometric lines of city walls, mosques, or intricate geometric tiling contrast with the curved and flowing lines of the figures in their traditional dress. In many examples of Rbati's work, the picture plane is entirely flat, with no reference to dimensionality, and the paintings sometimes include decorative borders. However, numerous watercolours go beyond a flat plane to document the scenes the artist witnessed more closely. In these, shadows are placed under each figure, showing the artist's experimentation and study of light and multi-dimensionality.
Often, Rbati’s work is described as emerging from his relationship with John Lavery. An alternative lineage may be traditional practices of Arab and Persian manuscript illumination, both in terms of R’bati’s treatment of light and in terms of the presence of both realistic and stylised figuration. Art historian Toni Maraini therefore compares Rbati to the Algerian miniaturist Mohammed Racim (1896–1975). More broadly, the varied treatment of the picture plane suggests the artist's interest in deliberately simplifying the forms as part of a style, not as a default.
Rbati is often left out of histories of painting in Morocco, which, in general, focus more on the latter half of the 20th-century. However, as a 1918 exhibition of easel paintings at the Hotel Excelsior in Casablanca suggests, there were visiting and local artists working in Morocco through the protectorate era (1912–1956). Works of several early Moroccan figurative painters have been preserved, although they are mostly understudied. During this time, many artists captured daily life and locales, including Abdeslam El Fassi Ben Larbi, who painted daily scenes in central Marrakech. Early painting in Morocco is not well-documented, but Rbati's place in many national and international collections is a tribute to his foundational role.
