
Nima Sagharchi
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£16,000 - £20,000
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Provenance:
Property from a private collection, London
Bonhams are pleased to offer a rare and distinguished work by one of the Middle East's most accomplished living artists, Ali Omar Ermes. Executed in 1979, the present lot is the earliest work by Ermes ever to be offered at auction.
A consummate calligrapher, Ermes is one of the most learned and technically literate artists in his milieu. Deeply religious and dedicated to the ethical, mysterious and transcendental dimensions of Arabic calligraphy, Ermes focuses both on the architecture of the Arabic letterform and it spiritual associations.
The present work is atypical both in terms of size, form and content. In place of Ermes' customary singular figures, which are often used as symbols of particular divine attributes, the present work depicts the name of God itself, a far more direct and immediate gesture. The name of Allah, however, is not rendered in full, with its characters spilling over the sheet, demonstrating not only the boundless aspect of the divine, but indicating that God himself is not perceivable in his entirety.
In scale, it is considerably more intimate than his larger studies, a reflection of the deeply personal and internal elements of the Sufi philosophy that Ermes' is so inspired by.
For a similar work in the collection of the British Museum, see East-West Objects Between Cultures, Tate Britain, September 2006.