Alia Nakhli is a contemporary art historian who teaches at the École supérieure des sciences et technologies du design (ESSTED) at the Université de la Manouba in Tunisia. Her research focuses on Tunisian art history from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, as well as the history of fine art and design education. She was an expert for the exhibition L’Éveil d'une nation presented in Tunis at the Palais Qsar es-Saïd (from 27 November 2016 to 27 February 2017) and helped write the catalog. She published Arts visuels en Tunisie. Artistes et institutions (1881–1981) with Edition Nirvana, Tunis, in 2023.
At the heart of this article is the oblivion of Maghrebi artists, and Tunisian artists in particular, in art historical narratives produced in the West, despite their active presence in Paris after the Second World War. Under the French protectorate and in the aftermath of independence, travel grants enabled these artists to train in Paris, where they discovered the avant-gardes and abstraction, and contributed to the spread of these movements in the Maghreb. The article focuses on the careers of Edgard Naccache, Mahmoud Selihi and Nejib Belkhodja, who, although recognized by some critics and galleries in Paris, remain largely obscured in Western historical accounts. Their contribution to the Parisian art scene has remained marginal in the major narratives of art history, which have often ignored modern North African art. This study documents this erasure, contributing to the reflection on the reasons for the lack of visibility of modern non-Western artists.
