01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #31

Mahmoud Sabri, 1927 - 2012, Iraqi

A FAMILY OF FARMERS, c. 1960's

Oil on canvas

90 by 120 cm.; 35⅜ by 47¼ in.

Private collection

Mahmoud Sabri, 1927 - 2012, was an Iraqi painter, considered as one of the pioneers of Iraqi modern art and one of the pillars of modernism in Iraqi Art.

Born in Baghdad, Iraq, died on 13th April 2012 in Maidenhead, England. Studied social sciences at Loughborough University (England) in the late 1940s. While in England, his interest in painting developed and he attended evening art classes there. After a successful career in banking, he became a full-time painter.

In the 1950s he pioneered the painting of social and political issues. Later he studied art formally at the Surikov Institute for Art in Moscow 1961-1963. In 1963 he moved to Prague. In the late 1960s he started working on linking art and science.

He was actively involved in Iraq's arts community through his membership of various art groups. Led by his contemporary, Faeq Hassan (1914-1992), this group was inspired by Mespotamian art, Iraqi folklore and the 12th and 13th-century poets of the Baghdad School.

In 1971, he published his Manifesto of the New Art of Quantum Realism, QR. An application of scientific method in the field of art.  QR graphically represents the atomic level of reality using building blocks based on the atomic light spectra of elements in nature. He continued to work on developing QR until his death. He had several publications on art, philosophy and politics in Arabic and English. More on Mahmoud Sabri

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, and visit my Boards on Pinterest

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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #30

Farid Belkahia , 1934-2014, Moroccan

JERUSALEM, c. 1980

Pigments and skin on wood, in four parts

183 by 155 cm.; 72 by 61 in.

Private collection

Farid Belkahia (1934–2014) was born into a wealthy bourgeois family in Marrakech. He grew up with his father’s art collection, and his further artistic awakening would take place within his father’s circle of friends.

From about 1950, Belkahia took classes in Teslar’s studio. During these years, and prior to his departure from Morocco, Belkahia distanced himself from the Orientalist styles that persisted through the academic art teaching and Salons under the French Protectorate, instead choosing his own path. 

From the second half of the 1950s, and during the 1960s, Belkahia travelled all over Europe, the Maghreb and the Middle East in search of his cultural roots, constantly shifting his glance from one civilisation to another. Two periods during this time were most influential to his work. The first was his stay in Paris between 1955 and 1959, where he studied at the School of Fine Arts. Here, he consolidated his understanding of modern European art and developed his particular approach to light and colour – especially while in the studio of Raymond Legueult. More on Farid Belkahia

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, and visit my Boards on Pinterest

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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #29

LAILA SHAWA, b. 1940, Palestinian

THE WELL, 1987

Oil on board

80 by 50 cm.; 31½ by 19⅝ in.

Private collection

“The first painting made in Beirut not long after the devastating June war and the only known work of this type from 1967, The Well forgoes all allusion to landscape in favour of a hot expansive background of reds and yellows. Beneath the disc of a searing sun..." More on this work

Laila Shawa (Born Gaza 1940) graduated summa cum laude in Fine Arts from the Italian Accademia di Belle Arti in 1964 and received a diploma in plastic arts from the Accademia San Giacomo in Rome. From 1965 to 1967, she returned to Gaza to teach arts and crafts to underprivileged children. She now lives and works in London. As a Palestinian artist, Shawa’s concern is to reflect the political realities of her country, becoming, in the process, a chronicler of events. Her work is based on a heightened sense of realism and targets injustice and persecution wherever their roots may be.

Her work has been exhibited in Italy, Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom, in most Arab countries, North Africa, Iraq, Russia, China, Japan, Malaysia and USA. She is represented in public and private collections across the world, including the National Galleries of Jordan and Malaysia, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the British Museum in London and the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington D.C. Her work is currently on tour in Brazil, in the Centro Cultural Banco do Brazil’s exhibition Isla, the first major exhibition of Islamic Art in Brazil.

Shawa’s multi-media pieces have spanned four decades. As someone who has a close proximity to her native Palestine’s politics, her analysis and documentation of events there is at the core of her work. For that, it is in strength that she is known for her “uncompromising documentation of events of today’s Middle East.”  More on Laila Shawa

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, and visit my Boards on Pinterest

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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #28

Mamdouh Kashlan, (Syrian, b. 1929)

Hammam Al Nissaa’s bil sham (Women’s public bath in Damascus), c. 1990

Oil on canvas

68 7/8 x 78 ¾ in. (175 x 200cm.)

Private collection

A Hammam is a kind of bath that originated in the Middle East and combines exposure to warm air, then steam or hot-air immersion, massage, and finally a cold-water bath or shower. The Hammam typically requires movement from one room or chamber to the next. Separate wash rooms and soaking pools may be included in the bath building, as are dressing and rest rooms. The Hammam has been used for weight reduction, cleansing, and relaxation purposes. More on the Hammam

Mamdouh Kashlan (born 1929 in Damascus) is a Syrian painter. He has held more than 300 exhibitions in Syria and around the world and many of his paintings are on display in the National museums of Damascus, Aleppo and Deir Atieh and the presidential palace. His work is also on display in the Sorsoq Museum in Beirut, Lebanon, Modern art museum in Cairo, Egypt and has been displayed in Sofia, Bulgaria, Paris and Seinajoki, Finland. In 1996 he was awarded the pioneers prize from the ministry of culture. More on Mamdouh Kashlan

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, and visit my Boards on Pinterest

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others. Some Images may be subject to copyright

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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #27

Unknown artist

A LADY DRUMMING, QAJAR IRAN, 19TH CENTURY

Oil on canvas

57in. (144.8cm.) high, 34 ½in. (87.8cm.) wide

Private collection

Qajar art refers to the art, architecture, and art-forms of the Qajar dynasty of the late Persian Empire, which lasted from 1781 to 1925 in Iran (Persia).

The boom in artistic expression that occurred during the Qajar era was the fortunate side effect of the period of relative peace that accompanied the rule of Agha Muhammad Khan and his descendants. With his ascension, the bloody turmoil that had been the 18th century in Persia came to a close, and made it possible for the peacetime arts to again flourish. 

While the depiction of inanimate objects and still lifes is seen to be very realistic in Qajar painting, the depiction of human beings is decidedly idealised. This is especially evident in the portrayal of Qajar royalty, where the subjects of the paintings are very formulaically placed and situated to achieve a desired effect. More on Qajar art

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, and visit my Boards on Pinterest

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others. Some Images may be subject to copyright

I don't own any of these images - credit is always given when due unless it is unknown to me. if I post your images without your permission, please tell me.

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