Zoubeir Turki

Zoubeir Turki was born in Tunis on 19 November 1924, the younger brother of the painter Hedi Turki. He studied at the Zitouna and took classes in the city's fine arts school, and after taking part in nationalist activity against the French protectorate he left for Sweden, where one biography has him at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm from 1953 to 1958; sources differ on whether he returned in 1956 or 1958.

Back in Tunisia he became one of the main figures of the École de Tunis, the group of painters who, around independence in 1956, set out to create a Tunisian modern art drawn from local life and traditions. Turki's speciality was the line: quick, witty ink drawings and paintings of the people of Tunis — musicians, craftsmen, coffee-house regulars, wedding scenes and the characters of the medina — that became some of the best-loved images of Tunisian life. He also painted large murals, among them works for the national radio in Tunis and in Monastir in 1962.

His best-known public work is the bronze statue of Ibn Khaldoun, the fourteenth-century historian born in Tunis, which stands on Avenue Habib Bourguiba (one article places it at the Place de l'Indépendance, at the end of the avenue). He was active in the national union of visual artists and served in the National Assembly from 1979. He died on 23 October 2009. A tribute exhibition was held in 2023.

How to look at a Turki: follow the line. The ink drawings are fast and humorous, and the character of each figure is carried by a few strokes, so the pleasure is in the economy and in the faces. That reading is this site's own.

Where to see the work

The Ibn Khaldoun statue is a public monument and can be seen at any time. The Dalloul Art Foundation (Dafbeirut) publishes a biography and works. See our lists of Tunisian painters and Tunisian artists.