UNTITLED
signed and dated in Arabic and English Salah Taher / S. Taher 77 lower left
oil on paper on board
25.5 x 34.5cm; 10 x 13 1/2 in
55 x 60.5cm; 2 1/2 by 23 3/4in (framed)

Property of a Private Collector, Lebanon

Born in Cairo, Salah Taher was an Egyptian painter and educator whose bold and dynamic approach to abstraction defined and influenced modern Egyptian art. He studied at the Academy of Fine Art, Cairo, completing his degree in 1934 and served as a lecturer there until 1954. Taher held many leadership positions throughout the Cairo arts community, including heading the Museum of Modern Arts in 1954, the Khedival Opera House in 1962, and the Society of Advocates of Fine Arts in the 1980s.

Taher received numerous accolades for his work and contributions to the Cairo art community including the State Incentive Award, the Alexandria Biennale Award, and the Guggenheim Awards in 1959 and 1961. His work has been featured in more than 80 art exhibitions in Egypt, Venice, New York City, San Francisco, Geneva, Beirut, Kuwait and Jeddah. He was honoured alongside Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz with a book about his work titled 'The Brush and The Pen' by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in 2001.

Taher's abstraction largely features depictions of imagined figures and happenings, which he translated into dynamic shapes and colours. Often music and literature served as inspiration and were interpreted into patterns of swirling shapes in gestural applications. The motion of writing Arabic calligraphy was central in his work too. Taher used a flat brush or a palette knife to move the diluted paint on his canvas, thereby achieving his signature swiping touch, as displayed here.