Amine El-Bacha
‘L’Orchestre’
The late Lebanese painter, who died in 2019, was — according to the exhibition brochure — “an ardent observer of people and places and a master colorist who always managed a synergistic ensemble of light and hues.” This particular piece was inspired by — and an homage to — his brother, Toufic, a respected musician and composer. (The brothers’ uncle was also a composer and a painter.) El-Bacha is quoted in the exhibition notes as having once said, “One can hear music while looking at my artwork.”
Najat Makki
‘Untitled’
This is a fine example of the veteran Emirati artist’s abstract takes on the natural landscape of her homeland — a constant theme of her work, along with local folklore. Makki is a true pioneer; she was the first Emirati woman to gain a government scholarship to study art abroad (which she did in the late 1970s). She studied at the College of Fine Arts in Cairo, and has been heavily influenced by Egyptian artists including the Alsader brothers and Mahmoud Mukhtar. In 2018, Makki spoke to the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation about her fascination with color. “When I was a child, my father owned a herbal medicine shop. It was full of boxes of herbs as well as indigo dye and alum-block. I used them all to paint on paper bags. That’s when I started to love color … I learned about light and shadow from watching my mother fold our clothes. My relationship with color didn’t just come; I worked on it by learning from everything I saw.”
Khaled Ben Slimane
‘Wind’
This is one of several calligraphic paintings by the Tunisian artist on show at the exhibition based on the classical elements. Although best known for his ceramic works, Ben Slimane is also an accomplished painter, as these works show. Calligraphy also forms a major part of his work — he often uses Qur’anic verses in his pieces, which tend to be a blend of Islamic and Western artistic influences.
Farid Aouad
‘Sortie de Metro’
The melancholy beauty of this Aouad painting is typical of the late Lebanese artist’s work, as is the subject matter — the city of Paris. He first traveled to the French capital in his early twenties and it later became his home, after spending the Fifties in Beirut. “In Paris he dedicated himself to immortalizing the City of Light and its legendary cafés, bars, bistros and metro,” the show notes explain. That might sound like he was having a good time. Not so. “He lived his life in solitude, misery and poverty,” the notes state. “He often depicted scenes of lonely strangers in the city.”
Saad El-Khadem
‘Landscape’
El-Khadem is widely regarded as one of the most significant figures in Egyptian modern art. He was of aristocratic descent, and was a keen historian and anthropologist as well as an artist. His marriage in 1954 to Effat Naghi — arguably Egypt’s most prominent 20th-century female artist — cemented his celebrity. This landscape is one of El-Khadem’s more traditional works, showing no real sign of what auction house Bonham’s described as his “profound interest in folklore, traditional rituals, practices and esoteric religious beliefs.”
