A pioneer of the visual arts in Tunisia, as well as an academic and activist for women’s rights, Safia Farhat founded the first Arab-African feminist magazine Faiza and was, in 1966, the first female principal of the Tunis School of Fine Arts. The only woman to be part of the École de Tunis, a movement of Tunisian, French and Italian painters who moved away from colonialist art to find their roots in Roman archaeological history, Islamic and Maghreb architecture and traditional craftsmanship. As co-founder of the modernist design company Zin, Farhat played a key role in upholding the mural tradition among Tunisian modernists. The artist’s monumental drawings, characterized by her typical hybrid creatures, are made from ceramic tiles, paint, stone, iron and wool.
