Mehdi Qotbi

Born Rabat, Morocco, 1951

Qotbi emigrated to France and graduated in 1972 from l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Toulouse as the school's youngest graduate. He studied at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and later at the Lycée Collège Saint Joseph in Auxerre, where he trained to be a professor of plastic arts. From 1978 until 2006 he taught plastic arts at the Lycée Collège La Rochefoucauld, Paris. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world and was one of the earliest artists to create abstract pictures out of words which have become devoid of meaning. He has also created livres d’artiste with a number of writers and poets. Qotbi's works can be found in both private and public collections in France – including the Bibliothèque Nationale, Centre Georges Pompidou and Institut du Monde Arabe, in Paris – as well as in Morocco, Malaysia and the USA. An artist and lobbyist, Qotbi founded the Cercle d'amitié francomarocaine in 1991. He has received many honours from the French government including Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, Officier des Arts et Lettres and Officier de l'Ordre National du Mérite. In Morocco he is Officier de l'Ordre du Trône. He has lived in Paris since the 1970s.