Les deux grâces - Aly Ben Salem

• Artist: Aly BEN SALEM (1910-2001)
• Title: Les deux grâces
• Technique & support: Gouache on paper
• Format out of frame: 65 x 50 cm
• Size with frame: 82 x 67 cm
• Provenance: Private collection

Aly Ben Salem (1910–2001) was a pioneering Tunisian painter and one of the leading figures of modern North African art. Born in Tunis, he was among the first Tunisians to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Tunis, where he trained under Armand Vergeaud and laid the foundations for his distinctive artistic voice rooted in both academic skill and local visual traditions. 

In 1936, Ben Salem won the Tunisian Government Prize of Fine Arts, becoming the first Arab Tunisian artist to receive this honor. His early success led to a period in Paris (1937–1940), where he was immersed in the international art world and began to refine his unique style — a blend of traditional Tunisian aesthetics with influences from Persian and Indian miniatures and European modernism. 

After World War II, he moved to Sweden in 1950, where he lived for much of his life, championing Tunisian culture abroad and continuing to paint, collect, and promote craftsmanship. Throughout his career, Ben Salem’s work was characterized by luminous color, stylized figures, and a poetic sensibility that evokes both everyday life and dreamlike narratives. 

He received multiple international honors — including being made an Officer of the Swedish Royal Order, receiving France’s Mérite National des Lettres et Arts, and being appointed Officer of the Tunisian Republic. His Tunisian ethnographic collection was donated to the National Ethnography Museum in Stockholm after his death, and in 2010 Tunisia marked his centenary as a National Day for Culture.