Artist Database

Born in Morocco, Mohamed Melehi is a renowned Arab artist, activist, teacher, and a founding member of the Casablanca Art School. The School’s philosophy aimed to question cosmopolitan abstraction through a decolonial lens. He was educated at École des Beaux-Arts and later in Seville, Madrid, Rome, Paris, New York, and Minneapolis. Melehi’s style combines traditional Moroccan visual language with Modern Pop Art, paving the way for post-colonial Moroccan art.

Melehi’s use of a bold colour palette and geometric shapes makes him a Hard-Edge painter of the 1960s. Melehi organised an art fair at Jemaa el-Fna Square, Marrakesh in 1969 which is seen as a turning point in Morocco’s contemporary art scene. He later co-created the journal Integral (1971–1978) and founded the Al Mouhit Cultural Association, which led to the establishment of the annual art festival Asilah Cultural Moussem.

Melehi has been exhibited internationally at the Biennale de São Paulo, Brazil (2025); National Gallery of Fine Arts, The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman, Jordan (2021); Cromwell Place with Lawrie Shabibi, London (2020); Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), Marrakech (2019) and the Mosaic Rooms, London (2019). His work has appeared in recent exhibitions such as Form and Rhythm, Sotheby’s Dubai (2025) and the Casablanca Art School exhibition at Tate St Ives (2023–2024).

Melehi’s artwork is in major international collections including the Tate and the British Museum, London; Centre Georges Pompidou and Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha.