Lot 5: SALAH TAHER (EGYPT, 1911-2007) Nude Peering Through A Screen oil on boar

SALAH TAHER (EGYPT, 1911-2007) Nude Peering Through A Screen oil on board, framed signed Salah Taher and dated 1954 in Arabic (upper left), executed in 1954 83 x 49cm (32 11/16 x 19 5/16in).

Provenance: Property from a private collection, Alexandria Literature: Amr El Bilassy, Shell, Pioneers of Modern Egyptian Art, 13th edition, April-June 1996, illustrated on page 136 Graceful, elegant and sensually rendered, the present lot is a superlative and rare example of a nude portrait by the prolific Salah Taher. The present composition is an ingenious pairing of voyeurism and modesty; the kneeling figure grasps a long cloth to protect her decency as she peers out behind a traditional wooden screen, not only is her act of voyeurism subverted by the viewer, who is himself peering at her nakedness, but her effort to cloak herself is ultimately undermined by the artist whose perspective captures her voluptuous elongated form in all its sensuality. Painted in 1954, the present work is testament to an age of artistic freedom, where the cosmopolitan milleu of Alexandria and Cairo gave birth to daring artists who were unafraid of challenging traditional taboos. Salah El-Din Taher Mohammad was a highly accomplished and prodigious painter; he also was aactive in the administration of the arts and a philosopher. Born in Cairo in 1911, he graduated from the School of Fine Arts in 1934. In 1944, he joined the Faculty of Fine Arts, which is now part of Helwan University. As an arts administrator, he held many high-profile positions: In 1954, he was appointed head of the Museum of Modern Arts. In 1962, he was appointed head of Khedival Opera House. In 1966, he joined Al-Ahram. (He painted more than 35 paintings, for Al-Ahram that decorate the walls of its building). He remained in the position of the artistic consultant for Al-Ahram till his death on February 6, 2007 at the age of 95. Taher’s painted academic portraits of President Anwar Sadaat , Om Kalthoum and many kings, princes, first ladies and leading men. Overall, he painted approximately 15000 paintings and held more than 80 art exhibitions. His work has been exhibited in Egypt, Venice, New York, San Francisco, Geneva, Beirut, Kuwait and Jeddah. He was granted the highest awards in Egypt and internationally, among them, the State Incentive Award in 1959, the Alexandria Biennale Award and the Guggenheim Foundation Award in 1961, the Egyptian State Merit Award in 1974, the First Prize Biennial Alexandria in 1996. In 2001, he was honored alongside Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz at the opening of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and in 2002, he was granted the two highest awards in Egypt the Sciences and Arts Medal and the Mubarak Award. From Academic Realism to Abstract Expressionism – where excelled and achieved his greatest popularity, Salah Taher’s genius does not only lie in his fine and elegant lines, his bold colors or his use of a knife to spread transparent coats of diluted paint, but also in his cultural and intellectual contributions in the philosophy of the Arts. He believed in the significance of weaving colors, words and rhythms together in one unique abstract form that he referred to as the universal language. Every artist undresses his subject, whether human or still life. Mark Twain