Collection of the former New England Center for Contemporary Art (NECCA), Brooklyn, Coꦅnnecticut

Boston, Skinner, American & European Works of Art - 2581B,🐎 February 03 2012, Lot 693, sold to benefit the Temple Beth Israel and St. James Catholic Church,🍎 both of Danielson, Connecticut

Acquܫired from the above sale by the Biebuyck Family Collection

Executed in 1969, Untitled (Arc), is an example of a work produced off the back of what is arguably one of Mohamed Melehﷺi’s most seminal artistic periods: his New York years. In 1962, Melehi travelled to the United States to take ဣup the position of Assistant Professor in the painting department at Minneapolis Institute of Art. After one semester, a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation facilitated the artist’s move to New York to study at Columbia University. It was in New York, through constant experimentation and adaptation, that Melehi’s intrinsic style began. In these two short years, surrounded by the growing Abstract Expressionist and Colour Field Painting movements, the artist would lay the groundwork for a lifetime of success as a leading modernist painter.

The undulating waves that have come to be his trademark motif, and would feature in many variations throughout his practice, made their first appearance in New York in a work from 1963 simply titled New York. The New York paintings were more mature compared to those Melehi painted previously in Europe – he had moved to Europe from Morocco in 1955 to study fine art – his lines and forms became brighter, clearer and smoother, a reference to the work of Franck Stella or Jasper Johns, who both heavily influenced young Melehi. Melehi’s innovation in New York established his name in the US and culminated in the inclusion of his works in two influential group shows in 1963, the Hard Edge and Geometric Painting and Sculpture exhibition at MoMA and Formalists at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art.

Forᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ Melehi, the rhythmic wave carries a multitude of meaning and is at once personal and universal. Having grown up in the seaside town of Asilah, the waves reminded Melehi of his childhood but are also a clear reference to Islamic and Berber art. The wave, both abstract and representational, is symbolic of ou🍨r existence and the cosmic forces at play in our lives.

Melehi says, in 1968, just one yea💮r before completing the present lots:

'Conscious of the fact that I needed to represent Africa —too huge of a task, really—I wanted to create a form that, while traditional (the wave appears in all African art), while new (it is structurally modern), symbolizes a determined situation: despite its bloodthirsty, metallic, and programmed oppression, the dynamic spirit of this continent (its ‘SOUL’) rises up forcefully towards the sky.'

The Artist, 1968

Untitled (Arc) was produced shortly after Melehi returned to Morocco and during his last year as a teacher at the Casablanca School of Fine Art (1964-1969). It was there, alongside colleagues such as Farid Belkahia, that he founded the famed Casablanca School. 🌌The foundation of the Casablanca School allowed Melehi to take a radical new appro🅠ach to the Moroccan art scene and Moroccan society. Together, they turned away from Western influence, instead fusing Moroccan and Berber crafts with modernist architecture.

Melehi returned to New York some 20 years after his initial departure for his landmark exhibition Melehi, Recent Paintings&nb♚sp;at the Bronx Museum in 1984. As the first large-scale solo exhibition in the US for an a🌊rtist from North Africa, this projected Melehi to a Modern master with universal appeal.

Melehi’s oeuvre constitutes an amalgamation of his global outlook, Islami🍸c motifs and the cultural richness of Moroccan-Berber crafts to create a truly postmodern aesthetic.