Exhibit reveals drawings from Noureddine Khayachi’s personal collection

Tunis, May 8, 2009- The association for the preservation of the city of la Marsa in collaboration with his daughter, Tej El Molk Khayachi Ghorbal is organizing a rare exhibit paying tribute to one of Tunisia’s most inspired painters, Noureddine Khayachi. The exhibit will take place at the Essada Palace at la Marsa from May 8 to 10,2009.

The exhibit will reveal some 30 drawings and engravings from the painter’s personal collection, a first in the Tunisian art world.

They will also show a facet of the painter as an accomplished drawer. Known by Tunisians and art lovers for his colourful canvasses representing La Marsa street scenes such as “Saf Saf”, “Halkat El Aneb”, “Fishermen” and “Kobbet El Hawa”, the painter also reveals himself an inspired and meticulous drawer. His black and white engraving “Nus en fete” are a case in point revealing of the artist’s sensitivity, as well as the pictorial influence of a Picasso on his work.

In the prologue of the book “Noureddine Khayachi, and the light, and the dark ”, the authors, Tej El Molk Khayachi Ghorbal and Mustapha Chelbi fittingly write that “the painter preferred to clothe his women in his painting to better enrobe her in his drawings.”

Undoubtedly one of the highlights of the exhibit will be Khayachi’s first sketch of the Tunisian emblem first drafted in black and white in 1956.

The three-day exhibit (starting on Friday) which pays tribute to one of Tunisia’s greatest artists, is also a testimony of the painter’s love of the city of la Marsa which he particularly cherished and which occupies such an important part in his pictorial work. A must see!