'Art In the Service of Colonialism' throws new light on how nothing in the Moroccan French Protectorate (912-1956) 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 revitalised 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 decolonisation. Hamid Irbouh's study is a highly original, meticulously researched and pioneering investigation. This book will interest a very wide range of readers, not only in the history of Morocco, but also in art and design history more generally and especially, the rapidly growing field of postcolonial studies.
It sheds immense light on the distinctive characteristics of contemporary popular culture in this North African country. - Anthony King, Bartle Professor of Art History and Sociology, State University of New York at Binghamton In this well-conceived book based on original archival sources Hamid Irbouh investigates how French colonial administrators employed French women to inculcate colonial ideology by establishing new craft schools for notable and poor families in Moroccan cities. The French intended not only to teach modernized versions of old Moroccan crafts, but also wanted to instill new work habits and modern concepts of time into the girls and young women who attended their schools. Dr. Irbouh demonstrates how French women administrators took the lead in this effort and also shows how Moroccan women absorbed their lessons, but also resisted the colonial enterprise. His is a novel approach to colonial art history, situating Moroccan art production in large social, political and ideological contexts. -Stuart Schaar, Professor of Middle East and North African History, Brooklyn College, City University of New York