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Lot Essay
Occupying a unique position amongst his contemporaries, Egyptian painter Abdul Hadi Al Gazzar’s work has not ceased to challenge artists, intellectuals and critics even years after his death. He was one of the most important modern Egyptian artists who opened the door to Egypt’s folkloric realm through a brand-new pictorial vocabulary full of symbolism and offering a whole new range of unprecedented and intriguing imagery. As part of The Group of Contemporary Art, formed in 1944 by Hussein Youssef Amin, who was his teacher at the time, El Gazzar constantly embarked on a search for Egyptian traditions as well as applying symbolism and popular philosophy. Their aim was to rid Egyptian art of its romanticism that was applied by earlier artists and Orientalists, and try to bring it back to its roots and assert its ‘Egyptianness’.
Growing up in the popular district of al Kabbari in Alexandria, which was inhabited by lower working classes, El Gazzar would spend his days acutely observing his surroundings. Personal circumstances and living environment greatly influenced the works he produced. These surroundings and circumstances really affected his artistic career in its early stages, as he was greatly inspired by the colours and shadows, the rhythm and relationship between the earth and the ocean, the view of the sunset, and particularly the coal workers as they would load and unload shipments at the harbor. Gazzar is known for works detailing themes, symbols and motifs relating to Egyptian vernacular culture derived from traditions of mysticism and of the moulid.
Finding out that he had an artistic talent from early on in his life, he became active in the Contemporary Art Group, and his work revolved around the universe, the relationship between humans and nature, the process of creation, and the survival abilities of humans at any age. His detailed works are deemed as some of the most substantial insignias of Egypt’s modern and contemporary movements. Rejecting western techniques, El Gazzar’s work went through significant changes and stages.
Painted in 1961 and unseen since it was on public view last at the 39th Cairo Salon in 1963 where the work was purchased by the present owner’s grandfather, the present lot entitled Married Couple perfectly encapsulates El Gazzar’s signature aesthetics and his vision of the world around him. With the man dressed in a teal robe with a red undergarment and the woman wearing a traditional golden dress, the pair embodies ‘Egyptianness’ while simultaneously, the artist presents them under his modern eye, by daring to exaggerate their caricatural features and depicting the bodily proximity between the two. Perpetually challenging in subject matter, his work always provokes thought and investigation about the composition presented to viewers.
Resembling his early portraiture sketches, the work simplifies the facial features to their purest form. As we can see, the features are what are generally thought when one thinks of an eye, nose or mouth – not too realistic. Incarnating the essence of Al Gazzar’s strange and ground-breaking visual language, Al Gazzar subtly includes different symbolic elements, such as the woman’s necklaces and amulet, most probably aimed at keeping the evil away, the flowers they hold, perhaps hinting to virginity and innocence, and the tattoo-like symbol on the man’s green hand.
Additionally, on a second dimension, the wall behind the figures displays a rich variety of what seems to be El Gazzar’s reinvented hieroglyphic vocabulary. The gaudy colours and audacious contrasts, epitomizing once again El Gazzar’s style, animate the surface of the present work, offering a lively presence of the two characters. The way in which El Gazzar squeezes the couple and ambiguously in the painting’s frame could suggest a certain reading of the figures’ emotions. As the man, with his strange blue eye shadow, wraps his arm around the woman, with her almost manly facial features and body structure, the wife seems to be walking away, looking at her feet’s direction, and her long black hair blended with a veil seem to create a halo acting as a protective barrier between her and her husband. Therefore, El Gazzar’s tight composition transcribes to some extent the man’s suffocating love and the woman’s unease in this new relationship.
Through his placement of the figures, objects and their relationship to colour and size, his manipulations of perspective and the importance he gives to meticulous details in a swarming painting, all contribute to the multi-dimensionality of the painting's flat surface and incite the viewer to plunge into El Gazzar’s mystical and uncanny world in order to attempt the deciphering of his painting’s rich imagery.
Growing up in the popular district of al Kabbari in Alexandria, which was inhabited by lower working classes, El Gazzar would spend his days acutely observing his surroundings. Personal circumstances and living environment greatly influenced the works he produced. These surroundings and circumstances really affected his artistic career in its early stages, as he was greatly inspired by the colours and shadows, the rhythm and relationship between the earth and the ocean, the view of the sunset, and particularly the coal workers as they would load and unload shipments at the harbor. Gazzar is known for works detailing themes, symbols and motifs relating to Egyptian vernacular culture derived from traditions of mysticism and of the moulid.
Finding out that he had an artistic talent from early on in his life, he became active in the Contemporary Art Group, and his work revolved around the universe, the relationship between humans and nature, the process of creation, and the survival abilities of humans at any age. His detailed works are deemed as some of the most substantial insignias of Egypt’s modern and contemporary movements. Rejecting western techniques, El Gazzar’s work went through significant changes and stages.
Painted in 1961 and unseen since it was on public view last at the 39th Cairo Salon in 1963 where the work was purchased by the present owner’s grandfather, the present lot entitled Married Couple perfectly encapsulates El Gazzar’s signature aesthetics and his vision of the world around him. With the man dressed in a teal robe with a red undergarment and the woman wearing a traditional golden dress, the pair embodies ‘Egyptianness’ while simultaneously, the artist presents them under his modern eye, by daring to exaggerate their caricatural features and depicting the bodily proximity between the two. Perpetually challenging in subject matter, his work always provokes thought and investigation about the composition presented to viewers.
Resembling his early portraiture sketches, the work simplifies the facial features to their purest form. As we can see, the features are what are generally thought when one thinks of an eye, nose or mouth – not too realistic. Incarnating the essence of Al Gazzar’s strange and ground-breaking visual language, Al Gazzar subtly includes different symbolic elements, such as the woman’s necklaces and amulet, most probably aimed at keeping the evil away, the flowers they hold, perhaps hinting to virginity and innocence, and the tattoo-like symbol on the man’s green hand.
Additionally, on a second dimension, the wall behind the figures displays a rich variety of what seems to be El Gazzar’s reinvented hieroglyphic vocabulary. The gaudy colours and audacious contrasts, epitomizing once again El Gazzar’s style, animate the surface of the present work, offering a lively presence of the two characters. The way in which El Gazzar squeezes the couple and ambiguously in the painting’s frame could suggest a certain reading of the figures’ emotions. As the man, with his strange blue eye shadow, wraps his arm around the woman, with her almost manly facial features and body structure, the wife seems to be walking away, looking at her feet’s direction, and her long black hair blended with a veil seem to create a halo acting as a protective barrier between her and her husband. Therefore, El Gazzar’s tight composition transcribes to some extent the man’s suffocating love and the woman’s unease in this new relationship.
Through his placement of the figures, objects and their relationship to colour and size, his manipulations of perspective and the importance he gives to meticulous details in a swarming painting, all contribute to the multi-dimensionality of the painting's flat surface and incite the viewer to plunge into El Gazzar’s mystical and uncanny world in order to attempt the deciphering of his painting’s rich imagery.