Aly Ben Salem was one of Tunisia’s most distinctive modern artists. Born in Kalaa Kebira during the French colonial period, Ben Salem’s art emerged from a deep engagement with both traditional Tunisian craft and the intellectual environment of modern European art. Over nearly seven decades of work, he developed a personal visual language that fused the decorative richness of Islamic art with the formal discipline of academic painting and the spirit of poetic modernism.

Educated at the Tunis School of Fine Arts and later exhibiting in Paris and Stockholm, Ben Salem’s early career was marked by technical refinement and a keen sensitivity to ornament. His figures, often women, occupy lush, symbolically charged spaces: gardens, tiled courtyards, mythic dreamscapes. His use of delicate line, vibrant gouache, and patterned surfaces reveals a deep admiration for Persian and Indian miniatures, filtered through a modernist lens.

What distinguishes Ben Salem’s work from conventional Orientalism is his position within the culture he depicted. Rather than portraying a foreign world, his paintings imagine a possible one, a space where tradition and modernity coexist in harmony. After graduating from art school, he turned his attention to Tunisian heritage, studying age-old techniques in weaving, glass painting, and jewellery-making, which he incorporated into his practice as an act of cultural reclamation.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Ben Salem began travelling across Europe, spending extended periods in France and Sweden, where he exhibited his work and actively supported the cause of Tunisian independence. His relocation to Sweden in the 1950s added yet another dimension to his art, enabling him to explore identity through the lens of diaspora while continuing to promote Tunisian heritage within European contexts.

Ben Salem’s contribution to modern Tunisian art was both artistic and cultural. A passionate collector and preserver of traditional crafts, he played a central role in shaping postcolonial aesthetics.