Mohammed Chabâa was born in 1935 in Tangier.
A graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Tétouan in 1955, he continued his studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome between 1962 and 1964. On returning to Morocco, he taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Casablanca and at the École nationale d’architecture in Rabat, before directing the Institut national des Beaux-Arts in Tétouan from 1994 to 1998.
A major figure of Moroccan artistic modernity and a member of the Casablanca School, Mohammed Chabâa developed an abstract body of work at the intersection of geometry, pictorial gesture and references to Moroccan traditional arts. His work engages with broader questions surrounding Moroccan visual identity and the integration of art into public space.
Engaged in the artistic and cultural debates of the 1960s and 1970s, he published numerous texts in the journal Souffles and participated in 1969, alongside a collective of artists, in the landmark open-air exhibition organised at Jemaa El-Fna square in Marrakech and on Place du 11-Novembre in Casablanca.
A major retrospective entitled Mohammed Chabâa: Visual Consciousness was presented in 2021 at the Cultural Foundation in Abu Dhabi.
His works are held in several public and private collections, including Bank Al-Maghrib (Morocco), the Fondation ONA (Morocco), the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Morocco), the Ministry of Culture (Morocco) and the Barjeel Art Foundation (United Arab Emirates).
Mohammed Chabâa passed away in 2013.