When the Casablanca Art School was founded in the 1920s, in Morocco’s most populous city, it was essentially an Ecole des Beaux-Arts. But in the wake of W.W. II, a nationalist movement rocked the country, culminating with a declaration of independence in 1956. Mohamed Melehi joined the school’s faculty eight years later, in 1964, and removed the Greco-Roman busts and relics of Western aesthetics to make room for Berber rugs and Islamic art. It was the beginning of an avant-garde push that involved potters, tanners, weavers, and calligraphers in a redefinition of the country’s artistic character. This exhibition at Tate St. Ives is the first U.K. museum show dedicated to the groundbreaking school and the rebirth it fostered. —Elena Clavarino