Algerian painters

Algerian painting found its modern voice against the background of colonial rule, when the country was painted mostly by European orientalists. Mohamed Racim renewed the art of the Islamic miniature in Algiers, and his pupils included M'hamed Issiakhem. Baya, self-taught, was shown in Paris at sixteen with a preface by André Breton. Bachir Yellès trained in Algiers and Paris and went on to lead the national school of fine arts for two decades.

The generation of independence split, roughly, between figure and sign. Issiakhem painted the suffering of mothers and widows in thick, scraped layers; Mohammed Khadda, Abdallah Benanteur and the "painters of the sign" built an abstraction from Arabic letters and Amazigh motifs, a path later followed by Rachid Koraïchi and Hamid Tibouchi. Hocine Ziani is known for large history paintings. These are Algeria's painters, most looked-up first; some, like the singer Rabah Driassa, are better known for other work. See also Algerian artists.