Jilali Gharbaoui

Jilali Gharbaoui (1930–1971) was orphaned in infancy and grew up in extreme poverty in Fez, selling newspapers and working as a gardener before enrolling at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1952. Battling severe manic depression throughout his life, Gharbaoui channeled his existential torment into rapid, incandescent slashes of pure paint.

Gharbaoui is celebrated as the absolute pioneer of gestural abstraction in Morocco: working at furious speed with broad palette knives, he attacked canvases with streaks of pure light cutting through black and cobalt blue, seeking spiritual transcendence. In 1957, he found temporary serenity during an artist residency at the Benedictine monastery of Toumliline in the Middle Atlas. He was found dead on a bench in the Champ-de-Mars in Paris at forty-one.