"His painting utilizes traditional Tunisian imagery, both figurative and decorative, revalorizing the Arab-Muslim heritage in order to inject a modernist approach, brightly enhancing Tunisian artistic heritage"
Aly Bellegha was born in 1924 into a paternal lineage of Tunisian artists. He went on to study law, but ineluctably was drawn back to artistic pursuits. He left for Paris after a visit to the Institute of Higher Studies in Tunis, pursuing drawing, engraving and ceramics at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, frequenting the engraving workshops of Professor René Jaudon. Bellegha moved on to study at the Claude Bernard High School in Paris and at the Higher Institute of Fine arts of Tunis. Immersed in the nationalist spirit of cultural recuperation, Bellegha went on to exhibit his work both in Tunis and internationally, later opening his own gallery alongside his wife, Jacqueline Guilbert. Becoming a locus for the cultural renaissance of the period, He himself became a central figure on the local art scene and part of the Ecole de Tunis.
Aly Bellegha was passionate about ancient objects and the world of crafts, with a modernist approach to the development of crafts. His painting utilizes traditional Tunisian imagery, both figurative and decorative, revalorizing the Arab-Muslim heritage in order to inject a modernist approach, brightly enhancing Tunisian artistic heritage, notably through the use of wood, stone, copper, wool, leather and silver. He has primarily worked with wood to make compositions of still life’s.