Google honors Khadda with a Google Doodle

CAIRO - 14 March 2020: Google is honoring the iconic Algerian artist Mohammed Khadda with a Google Doodle on Saturday to celebrate the great painter birthday.

Mohammed Khadda was an Algerian painter, sculptor, and writer who was born in March 14, 1930.

During the years of resistance against the French, Khadda went and fought for the National Liberation Army.

After finishing with the army,his career as an artist slowly began and started his professional career in 1960.

Khadda contributions were in the fields of Cubism and Arabic calligraphy.

His style tended toward the non-figurative or abstract.

He was one of the founders of contemporary Algerian painting and one of the many representatives of the "sign painters.

Khadda mixed the ideas of calligraphic heritage and formal language of Western formal writing through Western abstraction.

Despite Khadda was mainly a self-taught painter for part of his life, he also had connections with art schools.

He enrolled in an École des Beaux-arts [College of Fine Arts] where he studied multiple art techniques such as watercolors, pastels, and paintings.

He gained more experience by painting scenes of meetings in bookstores and flea markets.

Khadda was inspired by the paintings of Eugène Delacroix, Eugène Fromentin, Théodore Chassériau, and Nasreddine Dinet.

He was also influenced by sculptures by Auguste Rodin and Antoine Bourdelle.

In 1953, he traveled to Paris, France to continue his education.

At that time, he studied under Pablo Picasso and learned the styles of Cubism which mainly influenced his artistic style.

After returning back to Algeria he set up an art community in for young aspiring artists.

In 1964, Khadda and others founded the National Union of the Visual Arts.

In 1967 he established the Sign Painters and School of the Sign.

He also illustrated books for Rachid Boudjedra, Tahar Djaout, and others.