Villa Abd-el-Tif

The Villa Abd-el-Tif in Algiers was a villa used by the French government as part of the bursary of the Prix Abd-el-Tif for artists and sculptors from 1907-1961.

The prize and the villa were conceived by Léonce Bénédite of the Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français as a North-African counterpart of the Prix de Rome with the prize of a residency in Rome. Unlike the Villa Médicis in Rome there was no permanent French director, the artists had to organize the villa's activities in Algeria as part of the bursary conditions.

The same model of a bursary was later imitated again with the Prix d'Indochine for painters 1920-1939, although no equivalent villa was established in Asia, artists relied on accommodation connected with the École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine in Hanoi. Finally the model was applied a fourth time for a bursary for painters and composers in residence at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid, 1929–present.

The villa was not a venue for the teaching of local artists, this was provided already in the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts d’Alger established 1843, and later École des Beaux-Arts de Tunis established 1923.

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