Biography
Safia Foudhaïli Ferhat was born to an established family in Radès, a port city in the southern suburbs of Tunis. She’s considered a leading modern figure and has become prominent, especially for her advocacy for women’s rights and her art, which integrates tapestries and designs with community artisanal practices. She had training in painting and was also an art patron and educator involved in several artistic initiatives, such as Tunis’s state-commissioned public art. Farhat was among the first Tunisian women to receive a formal art education. She completed her primary education in French colonial schools, and later, in 1952, she graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts de Tunis.
Farhat was a member of the École de Tunis, an art movement founded in 1948 under the directorship of the Tunisian-born French artist Pierre Boucherle (1894–1988), utilising the concept of “artist-as-craftsperson,” as historians like Jessica Gerschultz contextualise it. She was the only woman in the École de Tunis that included prominent Tunisian and European artists, such as Pierre Berjole (1897–1990), Yahia Turki (1903–1969), Jellal Ben Abdallah (1921–2017), and Abdelaziz Gorgi (1928–2008). Working with crafts herself, Farhat actively redefined what it means to be an artist and expanded the boundaries of modernism. École de Tunis rejected colonial art hierarchies that undervalued craft and indigenous arts; therefore, they focused on ornamentations incorporating Islamic architecture and ancient Roman art. This aligned with Farhat’s independent commitment to embracing authenticity and craftwork as a legitimate artistic expression. Her choice of subjects and mediums reflected these sentiments. She turned to mosaics, friezes, tapestries, murals, and frescoes to present diverse modern identities with ancient Greek and Arab oral stories.
Farhat’s early practice is characterised by colourful patterns and, at times, black and white, together with figuration, animals, symbols of labour, and historical narratives from the perspective of socialist Tunisia. A remarkable example is the mural, borrowed from a socialist-realist style, she completed around 1963 at the Tunisian Sugar Company in Béja. This work depicts two workers holding tools and standing valiantly against a still blue background. The man on the right, wearing a red Chechia, a traditional woollen hat, faces the spectator. His hands are occupied with tools, seemingly raising one in a gesture that could suggest an economic blessing, echoing the invocation gesture in religious and ceremonial paintings. However, most of Farhat’s mid-20th-century work focuses on women as divine subjects in mythology and history.
In 1959, Farhat founded a post-colonial African magazine, Faiza (1959–1967). Initially, the publication focused on decorative arts and women’s issues and expanded to broader feminist perspectives. Such transformation was achieved with vital feminist figures on the editorial board, including journalist and militant nationalist Dorra Bouzid (1933–2023), who joined the publication in 1960, Samia bin Ammar as co-director, Josette ben Brahem, and others. Together, they laid the literary groundwork for addressing social and political change during the reign of President Bourguiba. Farhat intensified her activities during the 1950s’ political shifts, including adopting state feminism, economic openness, and the anti-colonial nationalist agenda. These factors were very important in working together and emphasising the contributions of Tunisian women who had already attained leadership positions. Notably, the women in Farhat’s circle were often part of an intellectual class involved in politics or married to politicians. In 1944, she married Abdallah Farhat (1914–1985), a politician holding various senior government positions and a member of the Political Bureau of the Socialist Destourian Party. Through her practice of ‘women’s work,’ she aimed to confront elitism, fostering collaborations among women from diverse social backgrounds.
By 1958, Farhat became the first woman to be offered a teaching position at the École des Beaux-Arts, the same year Tunisia gained its independence from France under the governance of Habib Bourguiba. She led the decorative arts atelier from 1958 to 1964, and her teaching focused on handicrafts in response to Bourguiba’s agenda. She worked long with Abdelaziz Gorgi, who led the ceramics department, and they often partnered in teaching. In 1963, Farhat co-founded a design company with Gorgi called Société Zin (Zin Company), facilitating economic development for its associates. Collaborating with several artisans, they created monumental murals under state commissions, decorated schools, government buildings, and tourism venues. Notably, murals like those at the Tunisian Sugar Company, Hotel Les Palmiers in Monastir, and the National Institute of Productivity in Radès played a role in promoting women in the workforce.
In 1966, Farhat was appointed director of École Beaux-Arts, becoming the first Tunisian and first woman to lead it. She served until 1973, initiated significant reforms, and restructured the curriculum. Under her leadership, students began to receive a university degree and diploma. She significantly influenced her students and collaborators, working with artisans to teach weaving techniques and organising study sessions to broaden their knowledge of design and handcrafts in the country. The same knowledge was exchanged through collaborations with several associations between the 1960s and 1970s, including the Office Nationale de l’Artisanat Tunisien. She tried to bridge women artists as artisans and vice versa through academic and non-academic pedagogy.
Farhat’s designs and drawings from the 1970s are distinctive. She used iconography to bring out features like Tunisian tattoos and henna, using dotted patterns to reinterpret fantastical-looking designs. Her approach to the material drew on traditional weaving and glass processes reminiscent of archaeological artefacts. These works often referenced characters from mythology. Several of her portrayals are Queen Penelope from Homer's Odyssey, who symbolises fidelity and is the daughter of a Spartan king. Additionally, epic narratives revisit the tales of Banu Hilal, a group of tribes that migrated to North Africa during the Umayyad and Abbasid eras.
In the 1980s, Farhat’s work is marked by her celebratory depictions of Tunisian women, presenting them as solo protagonists in wedding dresses and ancient attire against backgrounds of native plants and traditional North African architecture. These are visible in the stamps she designed for the Tunisian Post. Moreover, she created three-dimensional semi-abstract tapestries, skillfully layering elements to create a collage-like effect. Some of her notable diptychs, like those in Gafsa and Ailleurs (1983), suggest organ-like elements bursting from the threads, accompanied by tapestries portraying old inscriptions. Her later work returned to realistic depictions with legendary stories, similar to her paintings of the late 1950s.
Between the 1970s and 1990s, Farhat resumed various leadership roles and engaged in civic activities. She directed the feminist L’Association Tunisienne des femmes démocrats, which she played a crucial role in establishing. In 1982, Farhat and her husband Abdallah founded the Centre des Arts Vivants in Tunis. Additionally, she served as the President of the Association des Artistes Peintres et Amateurs d’Art en Tunisie, which has regularly organised art salons in Tunis since 1948.
Safia Farhat remains a critical modernist figure who constantly challenged traditional
values. She left a lasting imprint on several artistic and feminist movements. In 2016, a museum dedicated to Farhat was inaugurated, and it showcased her artworks, which cover works starting from the early 1960s. The museum houses her remarkable legacy, and her niece and artist, Aicha Felali, continues to carry on with her tradition. Farhat’s work has recently gained more international recognition, such as in the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022.
