Ahmed Yacoubi

Ahmed Yacoubi (1928–1985) was a Moroccan painter, chef and story-teller. He was born in Fes, Morocco in 1928.

A Moroccan art scholar describes Yacoubi as "the best cultural ambassador Morocco ever had".

Paul Bowles, the American composer and writer, met Ahmed ben Driss el Yacoubi in 1947 in Fez and later in Tangier. Bowles and his wife Jane Bowles encouraged him to draw and paint the characters of his tales after seeing how well Yacoubi illustrated his translations for them.

Focused on recording different cultures' music for record labels in various countries, Paul Bowles invited Ahmed to continue to translate for him in Spain, Italy, Turkey, India, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Japan and then transcribed Yacoubi's own stories from Maghrebi (Moroccan Arabic) into English: "The Man and The Woman" (1956), "The Man Who Dreamed of Fish Eating Fish" (1956) and "The Game" (1961), and a play "The Night Before Thinking" which was published in the Evergreen Review in 1961 and later produced at The White Barn Theater in Westport, Connecticut.

The Bowles arranged for Yacoubi's first exhibition of drawings at the Gallimard Agency bookshop on the Boulevard Pasteur in Tangier. His art was highly acclaimed and 28 works were sold. Further exhibitions were held at the Galerie Clan in Madrid, the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York in 1952, and then throughout the world. A wide range of notable collectors began acquiring his unusual and unselfconscious drawings and paintings, recognizing his level of rare talent and integrity.

In 1952 Paul Bowles invited Yacoubi to his island, Taprobane, off the southern coast of Ceylon where Yacoubi prepared memorable meals for their guest Peggy Guggenheim (mentioned in her book Confessions of an Art Addict) and where she purchased several of his drawings.

...
Wikipedia