Mustapha Hafid

Born in 1942 in Casablanca, Mustapha Hafid entered the Casablanca School of Fine Arts in 1958, where he stood out for his mastery of drawing and painting, trained notably by Félix Bellenot. On a scholarship from the Polish government, he settled in Warsaw from 1961 to 1968, earning a master's degree in art from the Academy of Fine Arts in 1966 before training at the Pablo Picasso Graphic Arts Workshop. Influenced by the Polish avant-gardes and by Władysław Strzemiński's theories of Unism, he abandoned figuration in 1966 to develop an abstract language built on organic lines and sinuous forms. Back in Morocco in 1968, he taught drawing and painting at the Casablanca School of Fine Arts and took part in the Casablanca Group's manifesto exhibitions, notably the 1969 one on Jemaa el-Fna square in Marrakech alongside Ataallah, Farid Belkahia, Mohamed Chabâa, Mohamed Hamidi and Mohamed Melehi. Appointed twice as director of the Casablanca School of Fine Arts during the 1980s, he initiated major changes there while his painting evolved toward darker tones and a baroque dimension. A founding member of the Moroccan Association of Plastic Arts and a member of the Association of Polish Visual Artists, he has since divided his life between Poland and Morocco.

A painting rooted in expressionism and fauvism, where color and organic form transcend the visible to reveal inner states.