IN THE POPULAR imagination, the art of Morocco likely provokes thoughts of Zillij tilework or artisanal leather goods. Others may picture the Orientalist fantasies of Eugène Delacroix or Henri Matisse. A new exhibition at Tate St Ives, “Casablanca Art School,” seeks to revise such a limited vision of Moroccan art and presents a welcome introduction to work produced at the Casablanca Art School (CAS) from 1962–1987. Exhibition curators track the impact of five innovative CAS instructors on the work of their students and contemporaries.
Morocco became a French protectorate with the 1912 signing of the Treaty of Fes. In establishing political control, the French instigated a stratified population with native Moroccans living. Access to training in fine arts such as painting and sculpture was largely inaccessible. And, while work in craft and design was valued, a divide was created between the perceived importance of traditional Moroccan artforms, which were made solely for use in the medina or for colonial export, and the European designs created at the School of Fine Art.
