Art in the Service of Colonialism: French Art Education in Morocco 1912-1956

Art in the Service of Colonialism throws new light on how nothing in the Moroccan French Protectorate (1912-1956) escaped the imprints of metropolitan ideology and how the French transformed and dominated Moroccan society by looking at how the arts and crafts were transformed in the colonial period. The French established vocational and fine art schools, revived local methods for producing crafts, imposed modern systems of industrial production and pedagogy and reinvented old traditions. By marrying the old with the new, they revitalized arts and crafts and made them saleable commodities. Hamid Irbouh examines and analyses these processes and demonstrates how Moroccan artists have struggled to exorcise French influences and rediscover their authentic visual culture since decolonization.