1953. Birth

Hocine Ziani was born in Algeria, in the north of Large Kabylie. Its childhood will be marked by seven years of absence of the father and by a war of independence which will last as much.

1962. Release and meeting again

His/her father finds freedom, and his family. Hocine is old then nine and up to that point did not know any schooling. The village always misses school and teachers. That does not prevent the kid from being devoted to the drawing and modelling. This passion represents for him only one play among others Its first small exploits are terra cotta figurines. When his/her mother carries out pottery for the needs for the family, the little boy seizes the remainder of the loam to carry out some animal figures.

1964. Schooling

Lastly, the village is equipped with a school and two teachers. Of its own chief, Hocine runs to this establishment to achieve its inscription and that of his/her young brother. Provided education for, tardily certainly, it proves to be a very studious pupil and makes a success of this first stage of its schooling.

1969. College and boarding school

It is the end of the primary studies and time to leave its native village. Receipt simultaneously with two examinations; between the Teacher training school in Arab language and the technical college of teaching, in French, it chooses this last where it is allowed as intern. It receives there, inter alia, a formation of accountancy. The distance and the boarding school move away it from the family hearth.

1973. Algiers and youth

Settle in Algiers where it continues its courses of accountancy and integrates the world of work; it occupies a post of accountant in a national company.

1974. Soldier and sportsman

It has to fulfill its obligations of the national service: two years of service military. The young person called is built-in in a school of physical and sporting education, located in l`algérois. This institution gathers the sporting elite of the army and has vocation to train teachers in the field. With the exit of its formation, Hocine is maintained like candidate and thus integrates the national team of pentathlon.

1976. Hoggar and fascination

A change enables him to discover the great south, whose fascination will never leave it.

1977. Return and change

It joined the civil life and again its post of accountant whom it will give up just a few months to afterwards devote only to his vocation of painter.

1978. Rupture and discovered

Finally available that for its true passion, it will be put at work with a view to to present its art at general public.

1979. First exposure

The gallery El Mougar of Algiers opens to him its space for its first personal exposure. The media make him good reception and reveal the talent of a self-educated and figurative artist. Up to that point, independent Algeria did not know a similar pictorial classicism yet.

1980. Group of the 35

In reaction against the drifts of the principal association of the visual arts and the self-centredness of the persons in charge for this one, a group of plastics technicians, old dissenting or new come, is formed and organized to improve the climate within the corporation. The initiative comes from the Kerbouche painters, Hioun, Ziani, Bourdine and the critic of art Hadj-Tahar. They will sensitize other fellow-members. Join to the team then: Issiakhem, Khadda, Temmam, Martinez, Chegrane, Djemaï, Ouamène and d`autres still; the writer Kateb Yacine, close friend of Issiakhem, fact honor with the group by his moral support. 35 artists, of various pictorial tendencies, are plain to defend their cause. The group will be called "Group of the 35". Ziani is indicated there, by its accomplices, like coordinator between the artists and the Ministry for the Culture. Several collective exposures will know the day, through the country and also abroad.

1984. The painter and History

The Algerian government calls upon the artists plastics technicians for the foundation of a museum devoted to the national history. Within this framework, Ziani will carry out several fabrics, with the monumental format, and will be a considerable success. It is the dedication of the artist and, some share, it is also the resurrection of the representational art, scorned up to that point by the self-centredness of the abstract art, omnipresent. During ten years, Hocine will provide to the Central Museum of the Army and the Presidency of the Republic the essence of their respective collections. It becomes, to some extent, the official painter of the Algerian government. As for the painting of history, and specialization in a kind, Hocine Ziani apprehends there enfermement and diversity set of themes misses it. It is for that that it will change course. It decides to cease being the painter of only one kind.

1993. Paris and art galleries

In Paris, figurative painting is back on the market of art. Since the end of the Eighties, Hocine was interested in this progressive evolution. A prospection in some galleries of the French capital opens the doors of Europe to him. Daniel Lasnon, merchant of art animating a gallery on the Place of the Vosges, organizes two varnishings to him, initially in Paris, then in Strasbourg. With this occasion, the artist makes displacement and discovers the Alsatian city which allures it. Always under the dynamic effect of the Parisian galerist, his fabrics do not stop knowing new destinies. They are presented in other places that Paris: Nimes, Ajaccio then Brussels. During two years of continuation (93 and 94), Ziani shares its life between Algiers and Paris.

1995. Emigration and Strasbourg

Its life of "nomad" is not appropriate to him and thus decides to drop anchor finally in Strasbourg. The European capital, accessible city for the artists and the intellectuals, open its arms to him. The Rauscher gallery organizes with its painter orientalist a second exposure, after that of 1993. The Living room of the French Artists, organized annually in Paris, interests the artist who will make sendings since 1997 there. During this same year, it makes the knowledge of Gilles Dyan, merchant of art animating several galleries: Gallery of Paris, Singapore and New York operated. A fertile collaboration is undertaken between the artist and his new galerist. The ogee mouldings of the gallery present works of prestigious artists: Combas, Striped Sorkine, Tobiasse, Mouly, Buffet and Chagall.

1998. The Rhine and two banks

While keeping its occupation on the French territory, Hocine settles other with dimensions of the Rhine, in Germany. The two banks separate its two lives, one shelters that of the artist, the other, that of the man. The "nomad" sédentarise finally, but gone on regular journeys to Algiers to re-examine its family. Meanwhile, the direction of the museum of Algiers always counts on him and order places to him. In 1999, it answers this request by the sending of a fabric of large size: the Battle of Constantine. By its chromatism, relatively grisâtre, this work differs from the preceding ones, painted under the sun of North Africa. The gray of the Alsatian sky is reflected in a perceptible way on the pallet of the painter. Of its workshop of Strasbourg continue to leave much fabrics to go to brighten the ogee mouldings of European galleries, Singaporean or new Yorkean.

2003. The artist is quinquagénaire

The persons in charge for the Parisian gallery Art-Tallies are interested in painting of Ziani. They acquire initially some editions of lithographies, then oils; then, a direct collaboration with the artist will know the day. The works of Ziani thus côtoient, on the same ogee mouldings, those of Direct, Brayer, Buffet, Chagall, Dali, Weisbuch and in particular Toffoli, in which the gallery has exclusiveness.