The Path of a great painter
Oxford University Press in New York has released a reference book the "Dictionary of African Biography" which contains an article on Chaibia Tallal (1929-2004), by Osire Glasier, History Department.
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/The-Path-of-a-g...
Chaibia Tallal was undoubtedly the most famous painter of Morocco in the 20th century. Moreover, she is one of the great painters of the world, just as Miro, Picasso and Modigliani, to name a few.She is one of the Moroccan painters whose works are publicly traded. It must be said that her paintings sell for up to one million dirhams for a large format painting.
Chaibia Tallal was born in 1929 in Chtouka, near El-Jadida. Nothing seemed to predestine Chaibia's career as a painter of international renown. Indeed, she was born into a peasant family in the heart of the of the countryside at a time when schooling was still a privilege of the upper class children. Chaibia was illiterate. As a child she had the responsibility of watching over the hens and chicks. When she lost one, to avoid the wrath of her family, she is hid in a haystack. This period marked the imagination of the great painter. In the many interviews she granted to various journalists, she explained that throughout her career, her paintings reveal "all that" that is to say the extent of the fields, the cool rain and the smell of wet hay, and beyond, her immeasurable love for the sea, earth, rivers, trees, flowers, especially daisies and poppies. Moreover, it is this love that earned her the nickname of Mahboula, the village madwoman. During her childhood, Chaibia pick the flowers, made crowns which covered her head and body. By the sea, she picked up stones and shells, and sand and built houses that had doors and windows. Yet Chaibia had never seen a house before: she lived with her family in a tent. Nobody acted like her. The village madwoman is indeed different. Far from regretting her originality, with rising age, Chaibia says it was important not to be afraid to be different.
At the age of thirteen, Chraïbi Tallal was married to an older man this was his seventh wedding. This union lasted two years following an accident, Chaibia's spouse died, and she ended up a widow at the age of fifteen, as Hossein's mother, a child barely a year. To provide for her needs and those of her son, Chaibia spun wool, and worked in a household with several French families, as Morocco was not independent at the time. The long hours did not diminish Chaibia's determination.
This meant that no matter what her son escaped the injury of illiteracy, the injury she suffered all her life, and that neither fame nor wealth were able to cure. Similarly, poverty did not detract from the Chaibia decision not to remarry: she accepted the many marriage proposals she received. On the one hand, she wanted to protect her son against a possible abuse of a stepfather and the other, she wants to live free. Chaibia and appreciates his freedom, even in a home without electricity. Hossein Tallal recalls he studied in the candlelight, until he left Morocco to study abroad and return a renowned painter.
Chaiba Tallal continueed to do her household, while Hussein built his career as a painter. When the mother saw her son smeared with paint, she scolded him, explaining she was tired of washing this kind of filth. It is far from imagining that the roles would be reversed ... In the light of personal experience, Chaibia believed that each of us has a destiny already mapped out for him or her. Just read the signs of life to find their bearings. Indeed two events oriented Chaibia towards the path she would take. First, she met a holy man in the zawiya Moulay Bouchaïb who predicted that the Mahboula, would be the baraka, the grace of her village. Then the dream changed the course of her life. In 1963 at the age of twenty five years, Chaibia dreamt she was in her bedroom. The bedroom door opened, revealing a row of candles that extended to the garden. All colors of the spectrum shimmered in a perfectly blue sky. Then men, dressed in white entered the room. They offered Chaibia canvas and brushes, explaining: "it's your livelihood." Upon awakening, Chaibia knew that the dream had come true. Two days later, she bought the painting materials, and without delay, got down to work. When one day his mother surprised Hossein daubed with paint, it encouraged her to continue.
Chaibia continued to do her household during the day, and spent her evenings painting. Two years later, in 1965, Hossein invited Ahmed Cherkaoui, the Moroccan painter, and Peter Gaudibert, art critic and director of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris to come and eat a real couscous with his mother. Without ulterior motives,het showed her paintings to his guests. Pierre Gaudibert loved the works of the budding painter. With hindsight, Chaibia recognizes that it helped and encouraged her greatly.
In the first of three exhibitions in 1966, one in Goethe Institute in Casablanca, another gallery at the Solstice and the other in Paris at the Salon des Surindépendants at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Exhibitions then happened around the world. Chaibia's success was staggering. The Mahboula, the madwoman in the small village of Chtouka attracted a large audience among others in Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Ibiza, Tunis, Brazil Rotterdam, Iraq, Barcelona, New Zealand and Beverly Hills. The great art critics have voted Chaibia a great painter of the 20th century, also rightly, since her works alongside those by Miro, Picasso and Modigliani to name a few. Also, in 1971, Chaibia appeared in the Larousse guide of art in the world, and in 1977 she entered the Bézénit reference dictionary.
But nobody is a prophet in his own home. Indeed, while the West went into raptures over the talent of Chaibia Tallal, the tenor of contemporary art in Morocco reserve for her a sovereign contempt. I must say that for them, the production of the latter produces to the best of naive art. Yet art critics are almost unanimous in this regard: Chabia's style, is not within this form of expression. And if we all took to classify this style, some critics agree that we are dealing with an "outsider art" , a plastic ideal as recommended by the European Movement Cobra, in reference to Chabia in 1945, namely an art free from any influence scholarly, cultural and historical. In fact, Chabia's style is unclassifiable. Later, they say a "Chaibia" as they say a "Picasso" ... but as they sell a "Picasso": Chaibia is the only Moroccan painter to be traded, and collectors are willing to pay the trifle of one million dirhams to buy one of her paintings!
Talla Chaibia died at Casablanca in 2004, at the age of seventy-five years, following a heart attack. Chaibia delivered to posterity a rich artistic production. Her paintings feed the collections of many countries, including France, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, India, Haiti, Australia, Britain and the United States. Her paintings are also fueling the largest private collections worldwide, including that of the King of Morocco, and those of other collectors including France, Italy, Lebanon, Egypt, India, Britain, New Zealand, and South Africa. All in all, Mahboula of Chtouka was a baraka, a blessing for the whole of Morocco. "
Chaibia Tallal was born in 1929 in Chtouka, near El-Jadida. Nothing seemed to predestine Chaibia's career as a painter of international renown. Indeed, she was born into a peasant family in the heart of the of the countryside at a time when schooling was still a privilege of the upper class children. Chaibia was illiterate. As a child she had the responsibility of watching over the hens and chicks. When she lost one, to avoid the wrath of her family, she is hid in a haystack. This period marked the imagination of the great painter. In the many interviews she granted to various journalists, she explained that throughout her career, her paintings reveal "all that" that is to say the extent of the fields, the cool rain and the smell of wet hay, and beyond, her immeasurable love for the sea, earth, rivers, trees, flowers, especially daisies and poppies. Moreover, it is this love that earned her the nickname of Mahboula, the village madwoman. During her childhood, Chaibia pick the flowers, made crowns which covered her head and body. By the sea, she picked up stones and shells, and sand and built houses that had doors and windows. Yet Chaibia had never seen a house before: she lived with her family in a tent. Nobody acted like her. The village madwoman is indeed different. Far from regretting her originality, with rising age, Chaibia says it was important not to be afraid to be different.
At the age of thirteen, Chraïbi Tallal was married to an older man this was his seventh wedding. This union lasted two years following an accident, Chaibia's spouse died, and she ended up a widow at the age of fifteen, as Hossein's mother, a child barely a year. To provide for her needs and those of her son, Chaibia spun wool, and worked in a household with several French families, as Morocco was not independent at the time. The long hours did not diminish Chaibia's determination.
This meant that no matter what her son escaped the injury of illiteracy, the injury she suffered all her life, and that neither fame nor wealth were able to cure. Similarly, poverty did not detract from the Chaibia decision not to remarry: she accepted the many marriage proposals she received. On the one hand, she wanted to protect her son against a possible abuse of a stepfather and the other, she wants to live free. Chaibia and appreciates his freedom, even in a home without electricity. Hossein Tallal recalls he studied in the candlelight, until he left Morocco to study abroad and return a renowned painter.
Chaiba Tallal continueed to do her household, while Hussein built his career as a painter. When the mother saw her son smeared with paint, she scolded him, explaining she was tired of washing this kind of filth. It is far from imagining that the roles would be reversed ... In the light of personal experience, Chaibia believed that each of us has a destiny already mapped out for him or her. Just read the signs of life to find their bearings. Indeed two events oriented Chaibia towards the path she would take. First, she met a holy man in the zawiya Moulay Bouchaïb who predicted that the Mahboula, would be the baraka, the grace of her village. Then the dream changed the course of her life. In 1963 at the age of twenty five years, Chaibia dreamt she was in her bedroom. The bedroom door opened, revealing a row of candles that extended to the garden. All colors of the spectrum shimmered in a perfectly blue sky. Then men, dressed in white entered the room. They offered Chaibia canvas and brushes, explaining: "it's your livelihood." Upon awakening, Chaibia knew that the dream had come true. Two days later, she bought the painting materials, and without delay, got down to work. When one day his mother surprised Hossein daubed with paint, it encouraged her to continue.
Chaibia continued to do her household during the day, and spent her evenings painting. Two years later, in 1965, Hossein invited Ahmed Cherkaoui, the Moroccan painter, and Peter Gaudibert, art critic and director of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris to come and eat a real couscous with his mother. Without ulterior motives,het showed her paintings to his guests. Pierre Gaudibert loved the works of the budding painter. With hindsight, Chaibia recognizes that it helped and encouraged her greatly.
In the first of three exhibitions in 1966, one in Goethe Institute in Casablanca, another gallery at the Solstice and the other in Paris at the Salon des Surindépendants at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Exhibitions then happened around the world. Chaibia's success was staggering. The Mahboula, the madwoman in the small village of Chtouka attracted a large audience among others in Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Ibiza, Tunis, Brazil Rotterdam, Iraq, Barcelona, New Zealand and Beverly Hills. The great art critics have voted Chaibia a great painter of the 20th century, also rightly, since her works alongside those by Miro, Picasso and Modigliani to name a few. Also, in 1971, Chaibia appeared in the Larousse guide of art in the world, and in 1977 she entered the Bézénit reference dictionary.
But nobody is a prophet in his own home. Indeed, while the West went into raptures over the talent of Chaibia Tallal, the tenor of contemporary art in Morocco reserve for her a sovereign contempt. I must say that for them, the production of the latter produces to the best of naive art. Yet art critics are almost unanimous in this regard: Chabia's style, is not within this form of expression. And if we all took to classify this style, some critics agree that we are dealing with an "outsider art" , a plastic ideal as recommended by the European Movement Cobra, in reference to Chabia in 1945, namely an art free from any influence scholarly, cultural and historical. In fact, Chabia's style is unclassifiable. Later, they say a "Chaibia" as they say a "Picasso" ... but as they sell a "Picasso": Chaibia is the only Moroccan painter to be traded, and collectors are willing to pay the trifle of one million dirhams to buy one of her paintings!
Talla Chaibia died at Casablanca in 2004, at the age of seventy-five years, following a heart attack. Chaibia delivered to posterity a rich artistic production. Her paintings feed the collections of many countries, including France, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, India, Haiti, Australia, Britain and the United States. Her paintings are also fueling the largest private collections worldwide, including that of the King of Morocco, and those of other collectors including France, Italy, Lebanon, Egypt, India, Britain, New Zealand, and South Africa. All in all, Mahboula of Chtouka was a baraka, a blessing for the whole of Morocco. "
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/The-Path-of-a-g...