Farid Belkahia was born in Marrakech in 1934 and died in 2014. He is regarded as one of the most influential figures in Moroccan modern and contemporary art.
After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and training in scenography in Czechoslovakia, he directed the Casablanca School of Fine Arts from 1962 to 1974. Belkahia became known for works made on leather and for integrating natural materials, Amazigh symbols and henna into a visual language that challenged inherited academic models and reconnected modern art with local materials and cultural memory.