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Lot Essay
In Gardenia, Samia Halaby masterfully uses ever-changing diagonal lines to create an illusion of motion by blending surface and volume, light and shadow, in an endless gradient. This approach is evident in her Diagonal Flight series, which she began in 1974 and continued through 1979. These paintings, first developed in the late 1970s and pursued into the 1980s, reflect her deep engagement with the geometry of motion. Having studied both painting and architecture, Halaby was drawn to the diagonal as a dynamic force, neither static like the horizontal nor hierarchical like the vertical.
Painted in 1978, Gardenia features an exceptional composition of sharp diagonal sweeps that structure the painting with clarity and intent. Yet the transitions of colour, from soft-hued green to pure white, interrupted by earthy brown, evoke the organic rhythm of life. The result is a balance of stability and flux, as though the painting were capturing the unfolding of a gardenia in bloom. For Halaby, the diagonal symbolised transition and transformation: a visual metaphor for flight, the passage of time, and natural growth. In this work, the diagonal acts as a compositional vector that guides the eye from grounded green tones upward toward radiant white, echoing the vertical surge of a stem breaking into flower.
One of the most prolific abstract artists of her time, Samia Halaby is a pioneering figure in Arab modernism and abstraction more broadly. Following the 1948 Palestinian Nakba, Halaby was forcibly displaced from her hometown of Jerusalem, where she was born. She was later raised in the United States, where she began her professional career as an artist and educator.
In addition to her studio practice, Halaby has achieved historic milestones. In 1972, she became the first woman appointed Associate Professor at the Yale School of Art, a position she held for a decade, mentoring a generation of younger artists. Her work is held in major institutional collections, including Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York and Abu Dhabi; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, and British Museum, London. In 2024, her work was also featured for the first time at the 60th Venice Biennale.
Painted in 1978, Gardenia features an exceptional composition of sharp diagonal sweeps that structure the painting with clarity and intent. Yet the transitions of colour, from soft-hued green to pure white, interrupted by earthy brown, evoke the organic rhythm of life. The result is a balance of stability and flux, as though the painting were capturing the unfolding of a gardenia in bloom. For Halaby, the diagonal symbolised transition and transformation: a visual metaphor for flight, the passage of time, and natural growth. In this work, the diagonal acts as a compositional vector that guides the eye from grounded green tones upward toward radiant white, echoing the vertical surge of a stem breaking into flower.
One of the most prolific abstract artists of her time, Samia Halaby is a pioneering figure in Arab modernism and abstraction more broadly. Following the 1948 Palestinian Nakba, Halaby was forcibly displaced from her hometown of Jerusalem, where she was born. She was later raised in the United States, where she began her professional career as an artist and educator.
In addition to her studio practice, Halaby has achieved historic milestones. In 1972, she became the first woman appointed Associate Professor at the Yale School of Art, a position she held for a decade, mentoring a generation of younger artists. Her work is held in major institutional collections, including Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York and Abu Dhabi; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, and British Museum, London. In 2024, her work was also featured for the first time at the 60th Venice Biennale.