Ahmed Cherkaoui

Ahmed Cherkaoui (Boujad, 1934 – Casablanca, 1967) was a Moroccan painter who worked in oil, gouache and watercolour. His work is one of the routes through which traditional Moroccan art entered dialogue with the abstraction of his time, making him a notable figure in mid-twentieth-century North African painting.

Born in Boujad, he studied at the École des métiers d'art and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and in 1961 won a scholarship to the School of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He was influenced by Western artists such as Paul Klee, Roger Bissière and Henri Matisse, as well as by traditional Moroccan art, which he studied with UNESCO support. He began exhibiting in 1959.

His style is abstract yet draws on motifs from Moroccan tattoos, pottery, leatherwork, weaving, ornament and architecture. Until 1965 his paintings combined dark colours; from then on his work became lighter and more spacious. From 1966 he applied this language to leather as a medium.

He died in Casablanca in August 1967 after a routine operation. Posthumous exhibitions of his work were held in Paris and Rabat.