Interactive Timeline
of Ary's Artwork

Representational

Palestine
Watercolors

Morocco
Drawings

Early Abstracts

New York Folio

Drawings

Prints

Early Mexican

Gouaches

Houston-
Cuernavaca

Leyendas

M O R O C C O    D R A W I N G S  ( 1 9 2 6 )

Excerpted from Reminiscences, by Frances Stillman, 1988

It must have been in 1926 or '27 that Ary traveled through Spain and then down to Morocco and Fez. The Foundation has a sketchbook of pen and ink drawings recording the landscape, the architecture, and the Arab types, single or in groups. Quick sketches, they have captured the mood and character of the landscape and the people. Traveling was always an adventure for Ary, and here in northern Africa he sought out the most colorful and exotic corners he could find. In Fez he wandered through Arab sections where the French had warned Europeans not to venture. In Morocco he was drawn to the Jewish ghetto section; there he found synagogues and Hebrew schools so poor that they could not afford books for the students; the boys sat in a circle around the leader, who held a copy of the Talmud in his hands and the youngsters learned to read from whatever angle they could see the book.