Karim Bennani

Karim Bennani – Untitled, 1981

Karim Bennani (1936-2023) is recognized as one of the founding figures of modern Moroccan painting.

Trained at the Academy of Arts in Fez, then in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian, he grew at the crossroads of tradition, modernity, and the post-independence artistic awakening. Returning to Morocco in the late 1950s, he played a decisive role in shaping an autonomous national art scene, notably as co-founder and later president of the Moroccan Association of Visual Arts.

His practice, rooted in painting, developed a lyrical abstract language where gesture, drawing, memory, and silence intertwine. Far from folkloric references, his work articulates a modernity anchored in Moroccan visual heritage while engaging with European abstraction.

He exhibited widely in Morocco and abroad—France, Italy, Spain, the Maghreb, the Middle East, and the United States—and his works are held in major public and private collections, including the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMVI) in Rabat. His legacy remains central to retrospectives and research on modern art in Morocco.