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Asaad Arabi (Syria, born 1951) The Engaged image 1

Asaad Arabi (Syria, born 1951) The Engaged image 2

Asaad Arabi (Syria, born 1951) The Engaged image 3

Works from the AbdulMagid Breish Collection

Lot 39^*

Asaad Arabi
(Syria, born 1951)
The Engaged

Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art

13 November 2024, 14:00 GMT

London, New Bond Street

Sold for £5,120 inc. premium

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Asaad Arabi (Syria, born 1951)

The Engaged
oil on canvas, framed
signed "Asaad Arabi" in Arabic (lower left), further signed, dated and titled on the verso, executed in 1965
98 x 62cm (38 9/16 x 24 7/16in).

Footnotes

Provenance:
Property from the collection of AbdulMagid Breish, London

Published:
Louisa Macmillan, Mysa Kafil-Hussain et others, In Vested Interests: from Passion to Patronage, The AbdulMagid Breish Collection of Arab Art, Skira, Milan, 2020

Painted in the mid-1960s, during a time when Syrian artists were probing their culture and creativity, Asaad Arabi has ventured deeply into experimental representation in The Engaged. He uses both abstract and figurative techniques to merge his chosen figures with their surrounding environment in rich, earthy colours, as furniture, objects and people come together in form and colour to create a vibrant, distorted vision. The individuals – both appear to be women – are shown not just in the colour contrast of black versus white, but also at the sartorial extremes of veiled versus nude. The women appear to be engaged in conversation, with their strong, sharp faces and postures turned towards one another, but the tone of their peculiar interaction is unclear. Following this experimental figurative phase, Arabi moved further into geometrical abstraction and also post-modernist expressionism, before returning to figurative work in more recent years.
-Mysa Kafil-Hussain

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- Modern & Contemporary Middle Eastern Art