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Ala Bashir (Iraq, born 1939) Predicament of Man image 1

Lot 74^AR

Ala Bashir
(Iraq, born 1939)
Predicament of Man

Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art including Baghdadiyat: Iraqi Masterpieces from the Madhloom and Makiya Collections

2 June 2021, 16:00 BST

London, New Bond Street

Sold for £24,000 inc. premium

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Nima Sagharchi

Group Head

Tel: +44 20 7468 8342

Nima.Sagharchi@bonhams.com

Noor Soussi

Head of Department

Tel: +44 20 7468 8345

Noor.Soussi@bonhams.com

Ala Bashir (Iraq, born 1939)

Predicament of Man
oil on canvas, framed
signed and dated (lower right), further signed, dated and titled on the verso, executed in 1980
121 x 100cm (47 5/8 x 39 3/8in).

Footnotes

Provenance:
Property from a private collection, London

Bonhams is delighted to be including this spectacular piece by the Iraqi artist Ala Bashir. Bashir was born in Iraq in 1939, eighteen years after his country declared independence from Britain; he grew up with the British army in Iraq and when he left Iraq it was under the American invasion. As a reconstructive surgeon during the Iran-Iraq war he found himself surrounded by death. Bashir was introduced to death at a very young age and his art practice is motivated heavily on the theme of death and tragedy.

The artist's style is easily comparable to that of the surrealists, yet these nightmarish visions are not dreams, they depict a reality that he lived through and the suffering he was witnessing daily. Unexpected directions in his style often make his work difficult to decipher, whilst recurring signs such as the raven and the mask draw directly from traditional Iraqi imagery. His work evokes the sense of rejection of the rational vision of life and asserts the beauty in the unexpected and uncanny, the disregarded and the unconventional. Unlocking ideas and images of his conscious and unconscious mind, however he likes to reiterate that his art embodies the truth in his eyes.

Anatomical and expressive, his paintings address the pain and suffering of mankind and the brutality of war. He began his artistic career painting landscapes and portraits but then found it to be a waste of his time and instead diverted his practice to exploring the human condition. Bashir says his surrealist paintings often dwell on themes of mortality and fate, influenced by his experiences of the war and the horrors to which he bore witness.

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- Modern & Contemporary Middle Eastern Art