Born
in Mazagan (now Al Jadida), Morocco, he studied art and
theatre in Rabat, Morocco, from 1950 to 1955, and then in
Paris from 1957 to 1961. He started painting only at the age
of 21, until which he had been interested mainly in theatre.
A few years later he managed to combine his two passions,
inventing, together with his wife, a psychiatrist, "Pictodrame",
a new approach in art-therapy, that brought him world
recognition.
His first exhibition took place in Casablanca in 1961, and
was very successful. Following the exhibition, Elbaz was
appointed Professor at the Beaux-Arts school in Casablanca.
In 1976, he exhibited his paintings at the Tel-Aviv Museum.
Elbaz also produced several short films in France, Canada
and the U.S.A. One film, "La nuit n'est jamais complete",
won a prize at the 5th Biennale in Paris in 1967.
Elbaz was fascinated by Holocaust themes, and produced a
short film about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, as well as a
series of drawings entitled "Seuls", accompanied by texts by
Elie Wiesel and Naim Kattan. An exhibition with works
inspired by the Holocaust was shown at Yad VaShem in
Jerusalem, in 1985. The paintings of Elbaz boast traditional
Jewish themes and present them in a chiefly expressionist
style. A retrospective of his work was held at Centre
Georges Pompidou in Paris, in 1990.
HFG
Links
Artistic Creation and the Moroccan Jewish Diaspora by Marc
Eliany
