Stylogenyin the style of Casablanca School Graphic Modernism

Rational modernism · 1962–1987 · Middle East & North Africa

Casablanca School Graphic Modernism

Also known as Casablanca Art School, École des Beaux-Arts de Casablanca (Belkahia era), Souffles graphics

A postcolonial modernism formed at the Casablanca fine-art school under Farid Belkahia, where Mohamed Melehi, Mohammed Chabâa and colleagues set Amazigh rugs and jewellery, painted ceilings and calligraphy beside a Bauhaus-style merging of art, craft and design. Its language of hard-edged waves, arcs and emblems in flat saturated colour ran across the covers of Souffles and Intégral, solidarity posters, logos, murals and interiors.

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A sample layout drawn from the style’s design choices. Stylogeny doesn’t generate images of this style, out of respect for the people it belongs to.

Use it with care

The Amazigh rug, jewellery and tattoo signs the school abstracted remain living, largely women's craft vocabularies in rural Morocco. Follow the school's approach of transforming and crediting sources, and work with makers, rather than copying specific rugs or signs as decoration.

01

How it works

  • Abstract motifs from local craft (Amazigh rugs and jewellery, painted ceilings, calligraphy) into hard-edged modernist form instead of quoting them literally.
  • Paint repeated undulating bands, arcs and flames in flat, saturated colour with crisp edges and no modelling.
  • Use one visual language for paintings, covers, posters, logos, murals and interiors, erasing the line between art and design.
  • Treat the poster as 'a painting that is accessible to all' and take work out of the salon into streets and squares.
  • Anchor a publication on one bold emblem, as Melehi's black sun did for Souffles, and repeat it issue after issue as its identity.

École des Beaux-Arts, Casablanca, under Farid Belkahia (director 1962–1974); with Rabat and Marrakech, Morocco

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Illusion of depth, Naturalistic depiction, Gradients, Painterly brushwork, Gloss & highlights, Ironic & self-aware

Palette

  • #f07a28
  • #e5508a
  • #2f9a5b
  • #1e57a8
  • #141414
  • #f3ead8

Typefaces

  • Neo-calligraphic Arabic display lettering

    taught by Mohammed Chabâa

  • Hand-drawn mastheads for Souffles, its Arabic edition Anfas, and Intégral

Known for

  • Mohamed Melehi, cover emblem for the first issue of Souffles

    1966

  • Mohammed Chabâa and Mohamed Melehi, design of Souffles

    1966–1972

  • Intégral magazine (1971–1977), founded by Toni Maraini and Mohamed Melehi; Melehi's wave cover for its first issue

  • Présence Plastique open-air exhibitions, Jemaa el-Fna, Marrakech, and Casablanca

    1969

  • Chabâa and Melehi, official poster for the International Art Exhibition for Palestine, Beirut

    1978

  • Interiors by the architects Faraoui & de Mazières with Belkahia, Chabâa and Melehi

    1967–1982

03

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

This styleCasablanca School Graphic Modernism1962–1987 · Middle East & North Africa

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

04

Real works

Artefacts in museums, libraries and archives that show the style, linked at their source.

  • Belkahia Chebaa MelehiMohamed Melehi · 1966 · The Museum of Modern Art, New York (700.1966)
  • SeductionMohamed Melehi · 1975 · The Museum of Modern Art, New York (57.2023)
  • UntitledMohammed Chabâa · 1977 · Tate (T16185)
  • Souffles, no. 1 (first quarter 1966), coverMohamed Melehi (cover emblem); review directed by Abdellatif Laâbi · 1966 · Souffles digital edition (Abdellatif Laâbi / CLICnet), Swarthmore College archive
  • UntitledMohammed Hamidi · 1971 · Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah

05

Sources

  1. Tate St Ives, 'The Casablanca Art School' exhibition guide: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-st-ives/casablanca-art-school/exhibition-guide
  2. Schirn Mag, on art and magazine publishing in the 20th-century Arab world (Souffles, Intégral): https://www.schirn.de/en/schirnmag/kunst-und-zeitschriftenpublizistik-im-arabischen-20-jahrhundert-2/
  3. Wikipedia: Souffles (magazine); Mohamed Melehi

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