Tag: Calligraphy
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BAHMAN MOHASSES, TIRESIAS DIDN’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT THE FUTURE 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #22
In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo. Tiresias participated fully in seven generations in Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus himself. Eighteen allusions to mythic Tiresias, noted…
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ANTOINE MALLIARAKIS MAYO, HARMONY 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #22
Antoine Malliarakis Mayo, was born in 1905 in Egypt, the son of a Greek engineer and a French mother. Although he kept a Greek passport throughout his life, he was culturally French and lived in France for half of his life after leaving Egypt. He came to France to study architecture but started frequenting artistic circles in…
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RAMSES YOUNAN, UNTITLED 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #21
The present work explores themes of poverty and disparity throughout a period of social inequality and extreme poverty experienced across Cairo. The divergence between the wealthy and the underprivileged is prevalent in the work, especially when one examines the juxtaposed figures represented across the canvas. More on this work Ramses Younan (Minya, 1913 – Cairo, 1966), was…
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MAHMOUD SAID, PIRAEUS AT DAWN 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #20
Mahmoud Said, 1897-1964, EGYPTIAN. Born into a wealthy Alexandrian family, Mahmoud Said first studied jurisprudence at the French School of Law in Cairo in the 1910s. During his studies, he became interested in painting, and joined the studios of Italian painters Amelia Casonato da Forno and Arturo Zanieri, before travelling to France to study in Paris,…
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Antoine Malliarakis Mayo, L’INDISCRET/ INDISCREET 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #19
Antoine Malliarakis Mayo, was born in 1905 in Egypt, the son of a Greek engineer and a French mother. Although he kept a Greek passport throughout his life, he was culturally French and lived in France for half of his life after leaving Egypt. He came to France to study architecture but started frequenting artistic circles in…
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SALAH YOUSRI, CITYSCAPE 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #18
Salah Yousri, was born in Cairo in 1923 and graduated with a degree from the Fine Arts School of Cairo in 1947. Upon his graduation, Yousri had a solo exhibition at Galerie Goldemberg in Cairo, and later on left for Paris to study in the atelier of famed Parisian cubist artist Andre Lhote. It is through…
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Gazbia Sirry, HOUSES ON THE NILE, 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #17
Gazbia Sirry (born 1925) is an Egyptian painter. Born in Cairo, Gazbia Sirry studied fine arts and became a professor in the painting department of the Faculty of Art Education, Helwan University. Gazbia is considered one of the leading Egyptian artists, with a varied and innovative career of more than 50 years. Serry’s art expressed the…
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Nuri İyem, ÜÇ ELTILER (THREE SISTERS-IN-LAW) 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #16
Nuri İyem, (1915 – d. 18 June 2005 ) was a leading figure in the Turkish painting and social-realistic art movement. Nuri İyem was born in Istanbul in 1915. During his childhood he used to paint walls with charcoal. Because of his father’s job as a health official, İyem spent his childhood in various cities of…
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Jamil Naqsh, Al-Haqq/ Truth 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #15
Jamil Naqsh, (25 December 1939 – 16 May 2019) was a British Pakistani painter who lived a reclusive life in London from 2012 until his death. He briefly studied at National College of Arts but left before obtaining a degree. His work has been described as idealized and sensual. Jamil Naqsh was born in Kairana, British…
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Rokni Haerizadeh, UNTITLED, RECLINING NUDE 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #14
Rokni Haerizadeh (born 1978) is an Iranian artist living and working in Dubai. He participated in the Carnegie International in 2013. With wit and irony, Rokni Haerizadeh’s exuberant paintings, works on paper, and stop-motion animations incorporate a prodigious range of visual tropes and influences to address contemporary politics in his native Iran and beyond. In But…
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Willy Aractingi, UNTITLED, 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #13
Willy Aractingi, (Lebanese, 1930-2003) was born in New York in 1930, Aractingi was raised in Cairo, studied in Grasse, before finally settling in Beirut in the late 1940s. Aractingi undertook painting at a very young age. His works are often differentiated by his use of unique colour gradations, bold pigments and recurring use of nature. Aractingi’s…
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Ali Banisadr , STARDUST 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #11
Ali Banisadr is an Iranian-born artist from New York City working primarily with oil painting. Banisadr was ranked #1 in Flash Art’s Top 100 Artists of 2011 Originally, from Tehran Banisadr moved with his family when he was twelve to San Diego, in the United States. He moved to New York in 2000 to study a…
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SEIF WANLY, UNTITLED 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, 12
Seif Waly (March 31, 1906 – February 15, 1979) was an Egyptian painter, born Mohammed Seif al-Din Waly into an aristocratic family, of Turkish origin, in Alexandria, Egypt. He was introduced to modern art after studying at the studio of the Italian artist Otorino Becchi. In 1942 he set up his own studio with his brother Adham Wanly…
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Mohammed “Hajji” Selim; Still Life 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #10
The present work is one of the most well-known examples of early Iraqi modernism painted by Mohammed “Hajji” Selim, father of prominent Iraqi painter Jewad Selim. Mohammed Selim was born in Baghdad. His parents were both originally from Mosel in the North of Iraq. Like many individuals from well to do families in Iraq, Selim was…
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Charles West Cope, Taming the Shrew 01 Painting, The amorous game, Part 58 – With Footnotes
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592. The main plot depicts the courtship of Petruchio and Katherina, the headstrong, obdurate shrew. Initially, Katherina is an unwilling participant in the relationship; however, Petruchio “tames” her with various psychological torments, such as keeping her from…
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Nejib Belkhodja, MEDINA ENTRE DEUX ORAGES – MEDINA BETWEEN TWO STORMS 03 Works, The Art Of The Nude, with footnotes #9
Born in 1933, Nejib Belkhodja was the son of a Dutch opera singer and a Tunisian aristocrat of Turkish descent. The family lived in the medina of Tunis–a walled city within a city that was home to the rich and influential and often seen as the heartbeat of most North African cities. Even in the face of their…
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Mohamed Ehsai, MOHABBAT (KINDNESS) 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #7
Mohabbat–the Farsi word for kindness, compassion and sympathy–is a tribute to the sacred art of calligraphy, however in the present work, the word holds a more secular meaning. The writing turns into abstraction and the letters, which are overlaid and distributed in a circular and dense yet joyful composition, are no longer decipherable. The morphed…
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Vik Muniz, NYMPHEAS, AFTER CLAUDE MONET 01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #6
“With photographs you can see history through your own eyes and you can make your own judgments and interpretations… When people look at one of my pictures, I don’t want them to actually see something represented. I prefer for them to see how something gets to represent something else.” Vik Muniz Ali Banisadr is an Iranian-born…
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Kour Pour, LOVE CHILD, 2010 03 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, # 5
Kour Pour (born 1987, Exeter, Devon) is a British artist of part Iranian descent based in Los Angeles. His father owned a small carpet shop in England, and Pour would spend time there as a child. He also often travelled to Los Angeles to visit family members on his father’s side, and would ultimately move there…
Zaidan Gallery 