Illuminating the Shadow Œuvre of Mohammed Racim
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A01=William Gallois
Algeria
Author_William Gallois
Category=AGA
chromolithographs
ephemeral arts
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
forthcoming
Islamic art
Mohammed Racim
shadow art
Product details
- ISBN 9781399555685
- Dimensions: 220 x 240mm
- Publication Date: 30 Nov 2026
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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The painter Mohammed Racim (1896–1975) was the best known Algerian artist of the twentieth century. His neo-traditional revival of the genre of the illuminated miniature appealed equally to French imperialists, to colonial subjects and to later generations of liberated Algerians.
This book offers close readings of a series of previously unseen chromolithographic prints which the artist created on a clandestine basis in the early decades of the twentieth century. It shows how these works merit consideration as radical, modern forms of Islamic art, noteworthy not simply for the manner in which they deployed religion as a means of challenging foreign rule, but for the richness and complexity of their spiritual purpose.
An affirmation of the major significance Racim's work had in shaping the modern art history, this book challenges the reader's preconceptions as to what constitutes Islamic art and the degree to which it developed in the modern period.
William Gallois is Professor of the Islamic Mediterranean at the University of Exeter, as well Director of its Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. He is the author of Qayrawān – The Amuletic City (Penn State University Press, 2024), A History of Violence in the Early Algerian Colony (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and Time, Religion and History (Longman, 2013), as well as essays in the American Historical Review, History and Theory, and NKA – Journal of Contemporary African Arts.
