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Rabat – The National Museum Foundation (FNM) has announced that it received a “generous” donation made up of a large collection of the great names in Moroccan painting.
This donation was given to the FNM on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of its creation, and it’s offered by patron El Khalil Belguench.
Morocco’s National Foundation of Museums was created in 2011. Chaired by Mehdi Qotbi, the FNM is a non-profit institution attributed with legal personality and financial autonomy, tasked with strengthening the governance of Moroccan national museums it manages on behalf of the government.
This generous donation was described as “a pledge of confidence” in the work accomplished by the FNM for its 10 years of existence, in a press release from the Foundation.
“The donation aims to multiply initiatives and projects in favor of the influence of Moroccan art and culture at the national and international level” added the same source. The foundation also emphasized the importance of patrons in the enrichment of national museums in the statement.
This collection is made up of works by 38 great names in painting including Melehi, Gharbaoui, Hamidi, Belkahia, Kacimi, Bencheffaj, Chaibia Tallal, Meriem Meziane, Malika Agueznay, Ben Ali Rbati, Jacques Majorelle, Benyoussef, Miloud Labiad, Miloudi, Yasmina Alaoui, Hassani, Mahi Binebine, El Glaoui, Amina Benbouchta, Afilal, Bendahmane, Louardiri, Hariri, Bellamine, Soly Sissi, Boujemaaoui, Saad Hassani, Mohamed El Idrissi, Ouazzani, Berhiss, Latrach, Bennani and Fakhar.
This new donation will complete the collections currently available to the FNM, which are donations from the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco and the Ministry of Culture. Both will endow the Mohammed VI Museum with modern and contemporary art with one of the major collections that traces the history of Moroccan art.
In 2020, Belguench donated more than 170 works to constitute the collection of Villa Harris, a museum in Tangier open to the public since March 17 of this year.
In October of 2020, the foundation received a donation of more than 170 major works from El Khalil Belguench. This collection included European orientalist artists who had visited Morocco and those who had chosen it as a destination of life such as Jacques Majorelle, Edy-Legrand, Claudio Bravo, or Jacques Veyrassat, the FNM said in a statement.
Today, the collection is more diverse than ever. While most pieces represent Moroccan culture and heritage through different styles, the diversity is now also one of provenance and perspective. Adding to the orientalist gaze a much-needed Moroccan artistic representation of the country and its people, the collection will now offer a more rounded, inclusive, and varied representation of Morocco to both Moroccans and foreigners.
