Matisse et Abdelkrim Khettabi
Late 19C, beggining of 20thC, Tangier gone international.
every one brought their baggage to the city of the strait.
Matisse paints marabouts and windows of a town already filled with people from all different walks of life. Tangier was a town of great investors, a refuge for anyone who needed peace and tranquility. Matisse lived for a long time in Hotel Villa de France and painted his famous “the view out o the window”- passage to the world of fame. Tangier was called "the Sin City" for some reason i do not really know. but the list of famous people tat lived there is amazing. i am thinking of big names like : Malcolm Forbes, Paul Bowls, Tennessee Williams, Barbara Hutton and others like Matisse. during the second quarter of the century the number of ex-pats in tangier was almost half the population.
the city provided a safe space for all kinds of people, gay and lesbian people, spies, women in prostitution, drug dealers, smugglers and all other kinds of people that had to work/ live in secrecy in Europe and N-America came to tangier to breath and enjoy the terraces of the cafés in the French section of town andsome freedom.
the American legation Museum in zenkat marikan still holds witness this gear ages of great international communities . an age so much cherished by Art historians. Tangier was the pride of ex-pat Moroccan history. it was a dream.
Abdelkrim Khattabi was there too... not too far.. in the Rif mountains.
2 comments:
Despite a dislike for much of Paul Bowles' writing and attitude, he did quite a bit of other stuff too - composed music; recorded Moroccan "tribal" (for lack of a better word) music that was quickly moving toward extinction due to the fact that no one was teaching how to play it; recorded and translated stories by Mohammed Mrabet, who was illiterate and who, without Bowles, would never have had his tales heard.
Anyhow, I wish I could've seen this era, from any viewpoint really.
I believe that others were: Truman Capote, Allen Ginsberg, William Borroughs, Jack Kerouac, Cecil Beaton.
Very interesting article.
I have been to Morocco. It is really amazing and fascinating country. I liked Tangiers. Also I know that many western people investing in Tangiers property. It is a city in the north of Morocco near the Straits of Gibraltar. It has a rich cultural heritage and is a city full of life.
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