Biography
Jilali Gharbaoui (Jorf El Melha, 1930 – Paris, April 8, 1971) is a Moroccan non-figurative painter.
He is considered “the first Moroccan painter to have chosen this mode of pictorial expression.
After his secondary education in Fez, he became a newspaper merchant during the day and attended classes at the city’s Academy of Arts in the evening for several years. Thanks to Ahmed Sefrioui, then Director of Fine Arts in Rabat, he obtained a scholarship to the School of Fine Arts in Paris in 1952, then attending the Julian Academy.
In 1957 Jilali Gharbaoui made a first stay at the Benedictine monastery of Tioumliline, located in the Middle Atlas, 5 kilometers from Azrou, which was closed in 19682.
A traveling exhibition presents his works in the United States. At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where he exhibited among other Moroccan artists, he received the First Prize.
