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Lot Essay
A practicing theorist, teacher and historian, the acclaimed Iraqi Modernist Shaker Hassan Al Said has contributed what has come to form a body of doctrine with considerable influence on the direction of the Iraqi art movement through an exceptional amount of reflections and writings. To this point, Modern Iraqi art has long been considered by many as one of the main foundations of Modern Arab culture that continues to flourish today.
A founding member of the Baghdad Modern Art Group with Jewad Selim in 1951 which championed istilham al-turath (return to heritage), Al Said drew heavily on Iraq's rich pre-Islamic and Islamic heritage, including Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian and Abbasid civilisations through to Ottoman Baghdad and along with the group was the first to advocate incorporating a cultural and intellectual message, as well as a philosophy, within the composition of the works of art he was producing. In this sense, Al Said's works embodied a remarkable synthesis of modernity, Islam and Arab identity harmonising Modern Western abstraction with Islamic and Ancient abstraction. Having studied the European use of line in painting, notably in the works of Braque, Picasso and Klee, following his studies in France, the fascination with the line occupied the artist up until his untimely death. It is of no coincidence that each of Shaker Hassan Al Said's works, from the 1950s until the early 2000s captures the essence of the simplicity of the line, pushing the notion of abstraction of shapes and figures and later the Arabic letter.
The seminal work Zein Al Abedin, painted in the 1950s reflect the progression of the artist's deep thinking that pushed him to later exemplify the notion of the spiritual in art through abstraction. The creative legacies of the 1950s and 1960s generations are intrinsic to an understanding of Modern and Contemporary Arab culture and this magnificent painting is a prime example of the works that were produced during that decade in Iraq whereby a reinterpretation of Arab, particularly Iraqi artistic heritage, was reinterpreted within a modern context. In this 1950s painting, as with many of his earlier works, Al Said's concern with line was evident from his linear approach displayed through his reference of Cloisonnism as a style using bold and flat coloured forms separated by dark contours. Portraying a dejected and forlorn singular character of Zein Al Abedin using a linear style that reduces shapes to their basic geometrical outlines, Al Said implements an angular quality that creates a rhythmic aspect that harks back to Islamic arabesques. The two dimensionality of the figure juxtaposed with the use of subtle shading that implies a three dimensionality, reflects Al Said's quest to highlight the duality of past and present.
Ali ibn Hussein, known as Zein Al Abedin, was the fourth Shiite Imam following the death of his father Hussein. Notoriously spared at the infamous Battle of Kerbala whereby his father Hussein, brother, uncle and seventeen members of family were slaughtered in the massacre under the hand of the Umayyad Caliph, Zein Al Abedin became known as an eternally despondent character as the deep sorrow over the tragedy of the battle plagued him for life. The Battle of Kerbala and Zein Al Abedin have become an important and intrinsic part of the Shiite Muslim doctrine and culture. To this day several millions of followers carry out a pilgrimage to Kerbala to see the Imam Hussein shrine and recall the massacre on the day of Ashoura.
In Iraq in the 1950s many political changes were developing as a result of economic and social strife, culminating in the revolution in 1958 that overthrew the monarchy, these alterations came hand in hand with a raging sense of artistic development that called for artists to interpret society by depicting current events and recording the social conditions of the country that were expressive of human emotion or rebellion and anger. The present work could be interpreted as Al Said's interpretation of the events that were rapidly unfolding in the 1950s. Choosing a character that was so deeply linked to the historical heritage of Iraq through Kerbala, he thus clearly alludes to the impending sorrow that is to come as a result of the demise of the monarchy and tragic loss of Iraqi people.
Shaker Hassan Al Said was known for his fascination by folk arts and legends, conducting his own research into Islamic and Iraqi history. Zein Al Abedin is a seminal example from the artist's early works that shows a clear inspiration derived from folk motifs in colour palette that is reminiscent of ancient Iraqi carpets and both form as well as content. Primitive in its depiction, the abstract interpretation and textural quality is characteristic of his later paintings and marks the slow progression in which Al Said shunned human and figurative representation and abandoned any composition that had the slightest figurative suggestion when he published his manifesto on One Dimension.
Christie's is honoured to be offering this work from the private collection of the esteemed late Iraqi painter Rafa Nasiri and his renowned art critic and writer wife May Muzaffar. Originally part of the collection of the famous doctor and artist Qutaiba Shaikh Nouri, it is a testament to the artistic and philosophical dialogue and development in Iraq's Golden Age of the 1960s and 1970s that many exchanges, intellectual as well as artistic, allowed artists from different groups to inspire one another and acquire each other's works, a practice that continues to be implemented today.
A founding member of the Baghdad Modern Art Group with Jewad Selim in 1951 which championed istilham al-turath (return to heritage), Al Said drew heavily on Iraq's rich pre-Islamic and Islamic heritage, including Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian and Abbasid civilisations through to Ottoman Baghdad and along with the group was the first to advocate incorporating a cultural and intellectual message, as well as a philosophy, within the composition of the works of art he was producing. In this sense, Al Said's works embodied a remarkable synthesis of modernity, Islam and Arab identity harmonising Modern Western abstraction with Islamic and Ancient abstraction. Having studied the European use of line in painting, notably in the works of Braque, Picasso and Klee, following his studies in France, the fascination with the line occupied the artist up until his untimely death. It is of no coincidence that each of Shaker Hassan Al Said's works, from the 1950s until the early 2000s captures the essence of the simplicity of the line, pushing the notion of abstraction of shapes and figures and later the Arabic letter.
The seminal work Zein Al Abedin, painted in the 1950s reflect the progression of the artist's deep thinking that pushed him to later exemplify the notion of the spiritual in art through abstraction. The creative legacies of the 1950s and 1960s generations are intrinsic to an understanding of Modern and Contemporary Arab culture and this magnificent painting is a prime example of the works that were produced during that decade in Iraq whereby a reinterpretation of Arab, particularly Iraqi artistic heritage, was reinterpreted within a modern context. In this 1950s painting, as with many of his earlier works, Al Said's concern with line was evident from his linear approach displayed through his reference of Cloisonnism as a style using bold and flat coloured forms separated by dark contours. Portraying a dejected and forlorn singular character of Zein Al Abedin using a linear style that reduces shapes to their basic geometrical outlines, Al Said implements an angular quality that creates a rhythmic aspect that harks back to Islamic arabesques. The two dimensionality of the figure juxtaposed with the use of subtle shading that implies a three dimensionality, reflects Al Said's quest to highlight the duality of past and present.
Ali ibn Hussein, known as Zein Al Abedin, was the fourth Shiite Imam following the death of his father Hussein. Notoriously spared at the infamous Battle of Kerbala whereby his father Hussein, brother, uncle and seventeen members of family were slaughtered in the massacre under the hand of the Umayyad Caliph, Zein Al Abedin became known as an eternally despondent character as the deep sorrow over the tragedy of the battle plagued him for life. The Battle of Kerbala and Zein Al Abedin have become an important and intrinsic part of the Shiite Muslim doctrine and culture. To this day several millions of followers carry out a pilgrimage to Kerbala to see the Imam Hussein shrine and recall the massacre on the day of Ashoura.
In Iraq in the 1950s many political changes were developing as a result of economic and social strife, culminating in the revolution in 1958 that overthrew the monarchy, these alterations came hand in hand with a raging sense of artistic development that called for artists to interpret society by depicting current events and recording the social conditions of the country that were expressive of human emotion or rebellion and anger. The present work could be interpreted as Al Said's interpretation of the events that were rapidly unfolding in the 1950s. Choosing a character that was so deeply linked to the historical heritage of Iraq through Kerbala, he thus clearly alludes to the impending sorrow that is to come as a result of the demise of the monarchy and tragic loss of Iraqi people.
Shaker Hassan Al Said was known for his fascination by folk arts and legends, conducting his own research into Islamic and Iraqi history. Zein Al Abedin is a seminal example from the artist's early works that shows a clear inspiration derived from folk motifs in colour palette that is reminiscent of ancient Iraqi carpets and both form as well as content. Primitive in its depiction, the abstract interpretation and textural quality is characteristic of his later paintings and marks the slow progression in which Al Said shunned human and figurative representation and abandoned any composition that had the slightest figurative suggestion when he published his manifesto on One Dimension.
Christie's is honoured to be offering this work from the private collection of the esteemed late Iraqi painter Rafa Nasiri and his renowned art critic and writer wife May Muzaffar. Originally part of the collection of the famous doctor and artist Qutaiba Shaikh Nouri, it is a testament to the artistic and philosophical dialogue and development in Iraq's Golden Age of the 1960s and 1970s that many exchanges, intellectual as well as artistic, allowed artists from different groups to inspire one another and acquire each other's works, a practice that continues to be implemented today.