Footnotes

Provenance:
Property from a private collection, Canada
Acquired by the above from Safarkhan Gallery, Cairo in 1993

Literature:
Alain and Christine Roussillon, Abdel Hadi El-Gazzar , Dar al Mustaqbal Al Arabi, Cairo, 1990, p. 173


Abdel Hadi El Gazzar was one of the most celebrated and prominent figures in Egyptian modernism. Bonhams are proud to present two rare and exquisite works by the artist; from distinct periods in the artists life they exhibit his early fascination with primitive forms and later fixation with industrial subject matters. The present drawings are the earliest and latest works by Gazzar to come to public auction.

"I am convinced that all creatures originate from one source: water"
- Abdel Hadi El Gazzar

Abdel Hadi El Gazzar's early drawings focus on the relationship between man and nature and the hybrid forms that emanate from this union. The metamorphoses of humans into what are deemed "liminal beings", essentially innately ambiguous life forms, is a recurring theme in the mythos of many cultures and serves not only to anchor men in the natural world, but highlights the darker facets of the consciousness that are best expressed through reference to the bestial.

El Gazzar saw first hand the transformation of human into beast during his youth in Alexandria, where he recalls spending his days observing poor labourers toiling on the industrial coastlines, an experience which was both dehumanizing and disfiguring.

The plight of the impoverished against backdrop of a vast, indifferent sea animated young El Gazzar and formed much of the basis of his early work.

Gazzar's mermaids do not recall the elegant nymph like hybrids of classical mythology; disfigured and alienated from their humanity they have almost entirely shed their anthropic form. The present depiction possibly takes its inspiration from the tale of Abdullah the Merman recounted in One Thousand and One Nights; it tells the story of a destitute fisherman who plunges himself into the sea in desperation, where he finds a utopian world liberated from strife and material concerns. Gazzar's figures echo the desperation of Abdullah, who was a tragic hero, so disenchanted with mankind that he begins to forgo his human appearance and transforms into a merman.

Drawn in 1950, when Gazzar was in his early twenties, the depiction is rendered with a deft, meticulous draftsmanship, which faithfully captures the empathy and depth of feeling El Gazzar felt for those aruond him.