Biography
Mohammed Melehi studied at the École des Beaux-Arts (1953–1955) in Tétouan, Morocco, before leaving to study abroad at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de Santa Isabel de Hungría (1955) in Seville; Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (1956) in Madrid; Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma (1957–1960) and the Instituto Statale d'Arte (1960) in Rome; the École nationale des Beaux-Arts (1960–1961) in in Paris; and finally was a recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation scholarship to study at Columbia University (1962) for two years before returning to Morocco in 1964.
Melehi's influence on the local art scene was significant. He and Farid Belkahia and Mohammed Chebaa formed the Casablanca School, which held an exhibition in Rabat in 1966. The group was not only known for their new modernist style but also for their pedagogy that aimed to root modernism in local visual culture. In 1969, these artists, along with other professors from the Casablanca École des Beaux-Arts, organised the manifesto exhibition “Présence plastique,” an outdoor exhibition held in Djemaa al-Fna, Marrakech, to connect with a larger public.
Beyond his painting, the breadth of Melehi's career has been striking, encompassing his teaching, publishing, policy roles, and work as a graphic designer. His poster for the 1966 Rabat exhibition is currently in the Museum of Modern Art collection in New York. Melehi was an active member of the group associated with the cultural journal Souffles from 1966 to 1969, serving as its artistic director. He also designed its original iconic cover. From 1972 to 1977, Melehi was the founder and director of the cultural journal Intégral. In 1974, he co-founded and became the director of the publishing house Shoof. In 1978, Melehi and Mohammed Benaïssa co-founded the Al Mohit Association and the Cultural Moussem of Asilah, an arts festival renowned for its outdoor murals, which are still held annually. Melehi served as the art director at the Ministry of Culture from 1985 to 1992 and as a cultural consultant to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation from 1999 to 2002 in Morocco.
Melehi's work is characterised by a recurring motif of waves, which he had been developing since the 1960s. His canvases are consistently hard-edged and optic abstractions — the lines are clean, the colours are delineated, and the brushstrokes are not visible. The waves themselves are often reconfigured, turned vertically to become flames, or cut across the canvas at an angle. These waves have been linked to the waves on the beaches of Asilah, Melehi's hometown, as well as to the graphic elements of Islamic art in Morocco, the gesture of writing Arabic calligraphy, and, in their meditative consistency, to transcendence and prayer. Throughout his career, he continued to elaborate on this central theme, reconfiguring similar elements in his research on colour and form while continually varying small details, such as orientation and colour combinations, as well as adding other abstract shapes or symbols. He has also reworked his waves in various media, such as a sculpture in Mexico in 1968 for the International Meeting of Sculptors as part of the Cultural Olympics and in posters murals and integrated them into architectural projects.
Melehi has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally. He was part of significant early exhibitions of Moroccan modernism, including the second Alexandria Biennial (1958), the first and second editions of the La Biennale internationale des jeunes artistes in Paris (1959, 1961), and the Festival Mondial des arts nègres in Dakar (1966). He was also involved in significant pan-Arab exhibitions, including the Al-Wassiti Festival in Baghdad (1972) and the PLO’s International Art Exhibition for Palestine (1978). He has had numerous solo exhibitions, including those at the national gallery, Galerie Bab Rouah, in Rabat (1965, 1997), the Bronx Museum in New York, and a retrospective at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, as well as at Galerie L'Atelier (Rabat) and the Sultan Gallery in Kuwait. He was a guest of honour at the 3rd Sharjah Biennial in 1997 in the UAE.
